This Mad World
by The Crimson X
Summary: What if Harleen Quinzel had never been warped by the Joker's psychotic affection? What if she instead found herself hurtling down a new path, one shrouded in the shadow of the bat.
1. Patient Zero

Who would have thought such a tiny, itty bitty little thing could change my life so much?

Okay, maybe he wasn't _that_ itty bitty. More like tiny. A tiny human with all the force of an hydrogen bomb behind that crazed, maniacal smile of his.

Humans _are_ tiny compared to the rest of the Earth, so my comparison still counts!

But where are my manners? My name is Quinzel. Harleen Quinzel. Gosh I've always wanted to do that. Actually the full title would be Doctor Harleen Quinzel, although I'm no doctor of medicine. I'm a psychiatrist, yep, a shrink! When I was little I actually dreamed of being a gymnast after I watched the Olympics at the tender, impressionable age of five, and for a long time I was really good at it. And yet when I was growing up and going through my teenage years I found my second passion in my life: psychology.

How ironic, isn't it! One love of mine about the strength of the body, and the other about the mind! I tried to juggle them for a long time, but sadly I'm no circus performer. It was hard for me and it broke my heart to do it, but eventually I had to chose which of them I wanted to devote my life to. After months of angst and no small amount of cognac involved, I finally settled on psychology and threw myself into my studies with all the passion and love I could muster! Years of my life dedicated to nothing but my now one true love!

Well, that and the occasional party. I'm not _that_ boring after all.

Anyways after I had that shiny little piece of paper in my hand I went off to become a pretty successful psychiatrist, if I do say so myself. Good enough to actually get me landed in the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane after a pretty short time. Ah, Arkham. My love and my greatest fear, both my fortress and my prison. Honestly I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I accepted the position. I just heard so many stories of famous, insane criminals put there by none other than Batman himself, truly unique cases of just how far the human brain can fall in its depravity. And now I was being offered a chance to study and help them!

My rosy glasses were shattered pretty quickly, but the shock of it didn't stop me from staying. If anything, after picking up the pieces, my resolve only increased. I wanted to help these people, as naive as that sounds in hindsight, but these people need at least one person to believe that they can change, that there is some good left in them somewhere. In a way I still do, but now I know there's more than one way to help these kinds of people.

And all it took was a little hostage situation! Who would have thought? A hostage situation thanks to a certain insane, pasty white, green-haired, yellow-teeth individual who is far too obsessed with the color purple for how own good. Have you guessed yet? It's Joker. Of course it's Joker, but still! A surprise is always fun, isn't it?

I can still remember when I first saw him...

* * *

She had seen him many times, actually. In blurry snapshots plastered across headlines, crime tabloids crowing about his newest schemes while lamenting upon what Batman would do next, in artistic renditions based on police sketches. One memorable time he had been caught running along the rooftops by a cameraman for Gotham News, although he looked no bigger than an action figure at such a distance, the four-second video clip had still given her chills. There was a certain way he moved, something strange that made part of her brain seize up and warn her of _danger._

The amygdala. Controls the flight or fight response. Can't distinguish a real threat from a perceived threat which ends up with a lot of people freaking out even if their lives aren't really in danger. One of the main reasons anxiety even exists.

Harleen shook herself a little, snapping herself back to the present. She hated it when she started to do that. She started categorizing things when she was stressed, trying to break everything down into neat, logical, scientific order as methodically as one would dissect a frog to label all of the parts inside. As if by peeling it open they truly understood the frog better. She had been trying to break herself of the habit, but she knew it was far easier said than done. Her degree wasn't going to be wasted on her.

She knew the doctor was waiting for her to say something, so she tried to crack a smile and a joke. "He's shorter than I thought he would be," she said at last, her eyes flicking to the grinning man behind the glass. Maybe it was because she was wearing heels so their height was more equal, or something else. She had always imagined the Joker to be tall and thin, so tall that he would scrape the ceiling and tower over her.

Well, she at least had the thin part right. It was almost like an illusion of some sort, the way his body flowed, so that he really did look quite tall until she was close enough to realize that she probably would come up to his nose if she stood right in front of him. Not so much like the Slenderman-esque type she had built up in her head, then.

Doctor Bartholomew was gazing at her far too intently for her liking. "If you're feeling uncomfortable, I can call someone else," he said softly. "He _is_ a very high-risk case and I know seeing him can be...overwhelming. We have doctors who have been here for decades who still refuse to go anywhere near his room."

A part of her wanted to leap at the opportunity, to grasp the lifeline he was throwing at her and haul herself to the shore before the ocean went over her head, but that was a tiny part that was growing weaker by the minute. Another part of her was eager to truly prove herself. Everyone here knew she was a respectable psychologist, but there had always been the smug look when they thought she wasn't watching, the bets to see how quickly she would break or fall down like the rest of them. The vultures waiting to pick apart the corpse of the innocent.

That was _not_ going to happen to her. She was going to sink her teeth right into the greatest patient in Gotham City and she was going to _enjoy it._

"Not at all, sir!" she replied, glancing once more at the Joker. "I can do this."

Bartholomew looked as if he didn't quite believe her, but he nodded anyway. At the gesture one of the nurses led her to the glass door and pressed the intercom button. "Step away from the door," he ordered. And Joker, grinning, complied.

And that was how she found herself sitting in front of the most dangerous, most maniacal, most cunning archvillian of all of Gotham City. There were running bets on how long it would take him to escape from the asylum _this_ time. She heard a rumor that there was a lounge where the staff kept tallies of how many times he had been incarcerated, and that the marks led all the way around the room like the drawings of a madman. She heard a story about how he once escaped by ramming his head against the door of his previous cell until it cracked, and that's why the glass for Joker's cell was reinforced and twice as thick as everyone else's. She had no idea how many of these stories were actually true and how many were made up just to see if the younger staff would believe them. The senior members had a rather twisted sense of humor, she had found out very quickly.

Knowing the Joker, they might all be true. And yet, it was just as possible that none of them were.

A hiss escaped through his teeth when he saw her sit down and she watched as they parted, like two great gates to a castle opening, and his red, viscous tongue swiped over them with agonizing slowness. "Hello Doctor Quinzel," he spoke in a voice that was far more pleasant and calm than she would have ever expected him to make. It ran down her spine like a knife. "Are you to be my new doctor?"

"Yes I am," she replied calmly, adjusting her posture and hitting the button on her tape recorder. She tried to remember all the safety tips she had been schooled on impromptu before they had led her here. Don't get within arm's reach of him. Don't let anything else get within reach either, especially small or sharp things. Don't let his laughter freak you out. When he leans forward get away from him before he can bite. Don't feed him, he can feed himself, he's lying if he says otherwise...

"Oh good, I like it when things change up a bit," Joker went on with a wider grin. "You're very pretty, you know that?"

"Thank you," she replied coolly, leaning back in her chair in an effort to appear more calm than she really was. "I wanted you to answer some questions for me, if you would please."

He chuckled. Every single note snapped against her vertebrae like a violent musician jerking on the strong of his instrument, and she felt her muscles stiffen a little in response. "Yes, yes!" he crowed, rocking his chair a little and slamming the legs onto the ground. "Ask, ask away! I dare you!"

Sudden mood swings and mania. Probably his bipolar disorder starting to leak through. The list of illnesses the doctors believed him to have were enough to make a good door-stopper, but Harleen didn't want to discredit everything. Definitely psychopathy and bipolar, those were the two he had for certain, but with how incredibly erratic he was it was impossible to really nail anything down. After all the schizophrenia theory really started to fall apart when there would be periods lasting _years_ of him being completely lucid and sane while simultaneously off of any sort of medication whatsoever. Except maybe snorting his Joker venom, knowing him.

"Alright," she said, taking her pen and clipboard and flipping to an empty sheet of paper. "Let's begin with your childhood."

She didn't expect to get any solid answers there, of course, and true to form he didn't give her any. Every time he was asked about his past he always told a completely different version—she had a whole list of previous stories he gave to other doctors—with details varying so wildly that she wondered if his free time was spent imagining different scenarios of his life as a form of escapism. Perhaps nostalgia? Or perhaps a traumatic childhood he tried to repress through happier, fake memories? Yet with how he constantly changed them she didn't think so. He didn't seem to care about how happy they truly were, and there was no consistent theme or detail so she couldn't pin down some underlying factor to each story.

Yet he was polite, most of the time, and genteel. It was always a toss up with how he would react to his treatment, and with her he seemed to be at least genuinely interested in what she had to say. Harleen knew this time she wasn't imagining the openly grateful looks her colleagues were giving her whenever she left his cell, and each time she left she felt more and more proud of herself.

Hell even _Joker_ seemed to be catching it.

"I don't know why, Doc, you're just so easy to talk to," he said during one session without a hint of irony to his voice. He was busy scooting his chair around in a circle, creating a most unpleasant screeching sensation, but she was ignoring it for the moment.

"I'm glad you think so," Harleen replied, fighting down a smile as she checked her notes.

He turned a corner of his mouth to her, with only his eyes moved in their sockets. She didn't think she'd ever get used to that smile. Wasn't he in agony, holding it in place like that all the time? Or did his muscles lock up that way forever? There was no way what her grandmother said about faces getting stuck was true, was it? "Maybe it's your charm," he said, although a snicker punctuated his words. "Everyone here is too... _serious._ Serious I say!" The last words he shouted at the nurse hovering outside the door. "But you? You're great. You're smarter than all the others, you know that being so grim all the time is a bad idea."

Something niggled at her brain for a moment, and she ignored it. He had turned to face her completely now, giving her a full view of that smile. "Everyone has different methods," she replied to him calmly, trying not to stiffen. "I suppose mine just works well with you."

"Indeed they do," Joker said with a chuckle. "Much better than everyone else's. Are you sure you're new? You're awfully good at this already for someone so fresh."

It hit her then, that nagging feeling that _finally_ broke through that stupid fog in her brain that had lulled her into a sense of complacency. Psychopathy, a master manipulator—it was how Joker managed to have henchmen and allies who would break him out of Arkham despite the horrid, twisted creature he was. He went after people who had something to prove, or a weakness he could exploit. He would break people down and yet build them up, just like he was doing now. Mocking her for being so inexperienced yet making her believe that she was amazing _despite_ it. An absolute classic move that was on the _very first page_ of the warnings she had received and like a completely idiot she had fallen for it, or at least started to.

"I'm afraid I'll have to cut this session short, mister Joker," she said, her voice far calmer than she felt, given the circumstances. Her stomach was roiling and she was doing her best not to let her hands shake as she arranged her clipboard properly. She had to get out of here now, and once she was out she was going to request an immediate transfer from Bartholomew, she was clearly unfit to work with Joker and—

His low, deep laughter made her freeze and she unwittingly looked right at him. Piercing, dark eyes caught her and held her in place, just like a snake mesmerizing a mouse.

Then he struck.

Harleen had no idea how it even happened. One moment he was restrained in his chair (or was he?) and then the next he was out of it, right in front of her with his hand gripping her coat and yanking her to her feet with so much force she could do nothing but obey. Her scream was cut sort by something sharp and cold pressing against her neck and she froze, immediately identifying it as metallic. Oh God did he have a knife? When the _hell_ did he get a knife?

"Yes, Doc, _let's_ end the session," he purred into her ear and oh his breath was _rancid._ Yet somehow sweet. It made her want to vomit and she swallowed, her heart racing.

The amygdala. Controls the flight or fight response. Absolutely real threat right in front of her, right here. It was currently screaming its head off at the rest of the brain and in turn triggering it to flood her body with adrenaline. The brain stem. Center of all the primal instincts, it was currently taking the wheel while the rest of her thinking, acting brain was frozen by the shock of the sudden events.

"Open up!" Joker screamed at the door, spinning her around and crushing her to his chest. "I'll do it! I'll sink this right in her neck and you'll be cleaning the blood off for weeks!" He laughed then, high-pitched, disjointed, _everything_ she had always imagined it would sound like and worse.

She saw the worried faces of the nurses, of the rest of the staff, but they couldn't do anything to help her aside from opening the door. "You and I are going to take a walk," Joker hissed into her ear, making her stumble forward with him. "This way, sugar."

Because he brain hadn't completely shut itself down yet, Harleen had a half-second to make about a dozen decisions and then discard them all. Her rational brain was slowly waking up and she decided to just play along with Joker for the moment. It was his game, and while everything was going his way he wasn't going to end it too soon. Frontal lobe. Center of logical, rational thinking. What made humans so different from many other animals.

Joker lurched forward, nearly dragging her along with him, and she worked her feet to keep up with him. They passed the staff and every single one of them looked at her in fear, and some in resignation. It was a death sentence and she knew it. Her knees trembled and any moment she felt like she was going to be sick. He was going to kill her, he was going to—

"Once we get out the door, you're going to come with me," Joker whispered into her ear as they entered the stairs, avoiding the elevator entirely. There was a wet, sliding sound and his tongue traced the shell of her ear. "We're going to go on a _nice, long_ walk together, Doc."

She whimpered, listening to his responding giggle with a fear that threatened to make her pass out. "Why not let me go?" she whispered, knowing the question was most likely useless but she _had_ to know.

Third stage of death, bargaining. She skipped right to the end, like a Monopoly card on her life.

"Because I have _plans_ for you, little one," Joker replied. He was enjoying himself far too much, his giggling a near constant as he hauled her down the stairs.

Please let there be guards on the ground, she thought to herself. There was at least one of them by the entrance, please please—

There was no one. Harleen wanted to _scream._ Stupid, absolutely _useless_ David and his stupid quarter-hour coffee breaks! If she ever got out of this she was going to throttle him with her bare hands.

The front desk gasped at seeing them emerge from the stairwell and Joker got to shouting again, once again telling them all that he wasn't afraid to kill her. That if they tried to call anyone or do anything he would drive "this" right through her carotid artery and all of her blood would be on the floor in five minutes. It was marvelously effective, all the other did was stare in terror as they made their way to the front door.

"Excellent job!" Joker said to them all, reaching for the handle. "Now I must bid you all farewell, I—"

That was as far as he got. As soon as the door swung open a massive black shadow dropped from it. Harleen only saw what happened in vivid fragment of her memory. The shadow moving, the shadow coalescing into a figure who was gripping the top of the doorframe tightly, using it as leverage while he swung down and delivered a kick that landed precisely on Joker's face. In an instant he was ripped away from her, but his grip still lingered and threatened to pull her down with him.

This time she let her scream burst out, scrabbling as she tried to catch herself or break free, but the strong, steadying arm wrapping around her jerked her to a halt better than any of her feeble attempts. Immediately she was warm and safe, yet the person who held her felt more like he was made out of stone than flesh. The room spun and she clung to the arm, readying herself while everyone else rushed forward, broken out of their stupor by her savior.

She turned her head, words of thanks forming on her lips only to die there when she finally noticed who it was who saved her.

Batman.

 _The_ Batman.

She had never seen him before either, but oh there was absolutely not a single person in Gotham City who didn't know what he looked like.

And he was looking right back at _her._ White slits of eyes boring into her with an intensity that stripped her bare, like how she would look at a particularly interesting patient while mentally dissecting every bit of their personality they revealed to her. She swallowed.

"Are you alright?" Batman spoke, and the descriptions of his voice being rough and gravelly did _not_ do what she just heard any semblance of justice whatsoever. What kind of morons were in charge of writing the news anyway?

Harleen was still shaking, her eyes flicking to the prone purple figure sprawled on the ground, and she somehow managed a nod. "Y-yes," she stumbled out once she managed to make her lips work. Everything felt blurry and unreal, she was wobbling too much and her head felt sick with dizziness.

Shock. Aftermaths of a traumatic experience. She was coming down off her chemical high and the aftermath was starting to set in.

Then she was being pried away from Batman, and the second she was gone he knelt down to examine Joker. She couldn't stop staring at him, enraptured by what she was seeing.

"Who the hell tries to escape using a _pen?"_ she heard someone hiss, but not to her.

"Well it almost worked, didn't it?" another person, Marlene, snapped.

Just then David came rushing out, looking wild and panicked, and right after he appeared Doctor Bartholomew came rushing from upstairs, all culminating in the appearance of Jeremiah Arkham himself to come and see what all the fuss was about. Batman spoke to them coldly and methodically, saying that someone from the asylum had called the police desperately for help and he had intercepted the call and that was why he had gotten here so quickly.

Harleen barely heard the words. She didn't care _how_ he was here, he just was and that was enough.

Not once did she take her eyes off of him. Not even when he climbed into the Batmobile and rode away like a specter in the night, disappearing as quickly as he had come.


	2. Shadow of the Bat

_His breath was hot in her ear, even hotter than the blood pounding through her head as her heart beat madly against her ribs. So hot, so wet against her skin, and she could hear the horrid whistling of air in his throat before it morphed itself into a phlegmy laughter._

 _"You and I are going to take a walk," Joker whispered in her ear, voicing the words like a lover."This way, sugar."_

 _His hands were still on her, holding her still while he dragged her along a dark, endless corridor. Every glass door they passed showed another Joker inside a cell. One tied to the ceiling, one bouncing off the walls in a straightjacket, one rocking in the corner and laughing maniacally, one casually sharpening a knife while whistling a cheerful tune, one sitting in a chair made from human skin—_

 _"See? A nice home for you and me," Joker leered into her ear as they stopped in front of an empty cell. Except, as she stared, she realized it wasn't empty. There was someone standing in the corner, head down, posture submissive and obedient. "Oh darling~!" Joker sang and it was the_ worse _sound Harleen had ever heard in her life. She immediately felt a cold sweat break out over her body._

 _The woman in the corner lifted her head, and Harleen saw that it was_ her _._

She woke up screaming, jerking upright with the sheets tangled around her limbs from the thrashing she had done in her sleep. There was sweat covering her body and her heart was pounding even out of her nightmare, causing her whole body to shake with it. It took her a frantic, panicked moment before she could tear her limbs free of the blankets and sit freely on the bed.

REM sleep, when the most vivid dreams occur, when the brain is most active during sleep. The limbic system, the center of emotions and the expression of them, and the storage of memories. Major parts included the hippocampus, vital to storing memories and spatial navigation, the hypothalamus, important for regulating sleep and hormones, and that goddamned amygdala. Controls the fight or flight response. Essential to experiencing and handling certain emotions, the most notable of them being fear.

Harleen trembled, listening to her brain pick itself apart in an attempt to rationalize and categorize all of the recent fears and emotions that had been welling up in her over the past few days, all hopelessly as her thoughts always jerked back to Joker when she was the most vulnerable. Not even in her _sleep,_ in her _own apartment,_ could she avoid him.

Just like that her tears came welling up inside of her like a flood and she buried her face in her pillow and _cried._ She and her pillow had become well-acquainted with her tears these past few days, but nothing she could do could stop them when they came. She screamed and cried, reducing herself to an inconsolable mess within a few seconds as her wild emotions ran rampant inside of her. God when she got a hold of herself her and her limbic system were going to have a nice, long discussion about what was appropriate for her to feel and not feel on a regular she was going to pound her amygdala into a pulp because was getting _tired_ of putting up with its shit.

A sudden flood of shame and humiliation and blessed _anger_ came through her and she pushed herself out of her pillow, still sniveling and her face soaked, and jumped to her feet. She was barely thinking at all, her frontal lobe clearly on a nice, long-overdue vacation that had been piling up since she first started college. The fucker. In the driver's seat for so long and then letting her midbrain take care of her after the first traumatic experience she ever had in her life.

Operating only on instinct and emotion and the barest trickle of logic, she stripped out of her clothes, leaving them behind her in a trail as she went to jump in the shower. Harleen didn't even bother to turn it on until she was already in the tub and the initial blast of cold water made her shriek, but she didn't jump out and waited for it to warm up. If anything the sensation was like a slap, jerking her out of her downward spiral and letting her _think_ clearly for a the water poured down her body, she began to feel herself calming down. Slowly, but still. The shower was a wonderful, cozy place where she could always unwind and relax at the end of a long day, the warm water and scent of soap coaxing her into a state of ease no matter what.

Thanks for explaining that one, Pavlov.

Harleen lingered for what was an entirely unnecessary amount of time, but she was going to stay for as long as she liked thank you very much. She even bothered to wash herself again even though she had already done that before going to bed, if anything because she _liked_ smelling like her favorite strawberry shampoo.

When she came into her kitchen, wrapped in her fluffiest bathrobe and feeling _miles_ better about herself than when she first woke up, she glanced at the clock. 3:12 am, just _great._ This was her last day of her three-day impromptu vacation that Jeremiah Arkham had given her in the wake of Joker's escape attempt and she was going to walk into work later without even a good night's sleep. He had even offered to transfer her to some other asylum in the city, but Harleen had refused, much to everyone's confusion.

But she couldn't even explain it to herself. While she absolutely did not want to see Joker in her life _ever_ again, she knew that working in Arkham Asylum would make that impossible, and he wasn't the only highly dangerous criminal they housed in their walls. Yet, would running away really solve the problem? The mental scars were already there, nothing she could do to change it now, and even if she was physically separated from Joker, she knew she would never truly escape him. Not when her own mind was against her. And there was that tiny little fact that she had been trying and utterly failing to ignore ever since the offer came up, the one she kept resolutely telling herself did not play _any_ part whatsoever in her decision-making process.  
Moving out of Arkham Asylum meant that she would almost certainly never see Batman ever again.

Of course four days ago that had never bothered her. In fact if the subject had been brought up she might have laughed. _"Well of_ course _I would never see Batman!"_ she would have said with a cheerful, indulgent smile. _"After all, no one does! The only person who really sees him on a somewhat regular basis is Commissioner Gordon and_ he _can only get into contact with him by blaring a giant Batsignal into the sky and hoping Batman decides to swing by!"_

To say Batman was a bit like an angel was hilariously ironic, but nonetheless the comparison had its points. After all one was well aware of the presence and existence of angels—at least if you believed in such things but thankfully Batman was very much physical and real—even if the work done by them was almost never truly seen or felt. Angels could come when called and were helpful, defending the innocent and delivering justice when needed, but one rarely ever saw them at work. Just like how Batman was in a sense Gotham's guardian angel, his presence very much felt, but almost never seen, yet his actions always turned the city toward a better future even if the many citizens living there were not even aware of it.

 _"Oh, he comes in here all the time," Deborah said to her as Harleen watched the Batmobile grow smaller in the distance. "About once every other week or so, usually with some dick tied up like a turkey slung over his shoulder. Always gives the older staff a riot when he comes by."_

 _Harleen glanced at her incredulously. "You're kidding," she breathed._

 _Deborah chortled and shook her head. "Nope. Honest to God, Harleen, you'll stick around here long enough and you'll see him plenty. No more than a few seconds, but still. With most of the criminals here being people_ he _put here he likes to keep an eye out, I guess. Heck with lunatics like Joker and Mr. Dent always breaking out within a few months we just message Gordon so he can contact the Bat, they're too dangerous for anyone else to handle."_

Only for a few seconds, she had been told. But Harleen wanted more than that. She wanted to _see_ Batman, at the very least to thank him for saving her, and...

And what? her brain rather pointedly asked her. Great, the only time it took a break from hyperventilating and now it was lobbing personal, probing questions.

Harleen ignored it, focusing on putting waffles in the toaster, and while she waited for them to pop out her eyes landed on the stack of papers spread out across the island. The most notable being the notes she had been jotting down throughout her past three days. The rest were printouts of newspaper clippings, pictures, old cases she dug up on the internet, and every other interesting scrap of information she could find that led her to her notebook: all of them centered around Batman.

What indeed?

She picked up her notes, briefly scanning over them without really reading them. VIGILANTE, she had scrawled in a big, black Sharpie under her first bullet point, the one thing she believed everything else hinged upon. No one became a vigilante out of nowhere, after all, and especially not one for an entire city. Most just stuck to their neighborhoods or areas of living, but this was something so much bigger, removed from the selfish nature of other vigilantes she found and studied. Yet the personal nature of the case was unavoidable.

Under vigilante she had a further list of points, some she crossed out and others untouched. _Trauma, narcissism, altruism, hatred/distrust of law enforcement, personal matter,_ and the list went on. Narcissism and the law enforcement parts she had crossed off pretty quickly, and it was the trauma part she expanded upon. Of course she couldn't entirely eliminate it just because she couldn't actually _know_ without knowing Batman's identity, but it was still the best and most logical guess.

She clicked her recorder on and stated the date and time and began speaking while she busied herself with organizing her papers. "So far out of all the motivations I have catalogued, I have come to the conclusion that trauma is the most likely driving force behind Batman. Altruism, while a strong part of his psyche, is another symptom, not a motive all on its own. Whether the trauma took place in childhood or during a more recent time is impossible to say, as is whether the trauma happened to him personally, or to someone close such as a family member or friend. Much like how the father of a daughter who has been raped will kill her rapist, if it is possible."

With a loud click, the waffles popped up, making her jump and whirl to face the source of the noise. She glared at the offending appliance and forced herself to calm down. While the waffles did smell delicious, she knew that if she interrupted herself mid-thought then she would lose the train entirely. Besides they were probably too hot anyway.

"However, based on my personal interpretation and a study into what I think is the psyche of Batman, I am inclined to believe that the trauma happened in childhood, and to himself personally. For such a devoted individual, the trauma must be deeply rooted, something that shaped him into the person he is today and he subsequently bases his whole life around it. Most vigilante adults simply patrol the areas where they live, a selfishness that does not fit with Batman's altruism, which inclines me to believe it is a manifestation of an innocence stolen in childhood. The inner child manifesting itself in the belief that one man can right all the wrongs in the world, like a superhero. Not to mention from the data I have gathered, I find the idea of Batman having a family to be highly unlikely. No man who works a day job—or one who has to take care of a family if he doesn't have a job for that matter—has the time or energy to run around Gotham all night fighting criminals. He still needs sleep. And his whole family would have to be in on the secret, and while it is possible I find the idea of so many people sharing such a secret without anything getting out improbable. A bachelor with no day job is the most logical conclusion.

"As an additional note: I would like to point out that I do not think Robin is his son, as many people have theorized. For one, I highly doubt that any mother would let her nine-year-old son go off and fight dangerous criminals on a nightly basis, and there is no report of a Batwoman, so to speak. An adopted orphan, a child out of wedlock, or a child with a deceased mother are all far better explanations, but in this case I must throw my lot in with the orphan one. There is a distinct lack of warmth in the interactions between Batman and Robin."

That wasn't quite how she wanted to phrase that. With a sigh Harleen tried to organize her thoughts. "To clarify: I do think Batman cares for Robin, cares for him very deeply. He is very concerned with his sidekick's safety. However their interactions are far more reminiscent of a mentor and his favorite student, and lack the closeness that a true father and son would have." She clicked her recorder off. Yep, that sounded pretty good, that was a good place to stop. Not to mention she hadn't planned on doing a whole recording session like her other times, and the smell of those waffles was _really_ distracting.

Hours later she found herself in another cell, although this one did not have Joker in it. She couldn't even look at him now, she did everything to avoid the hall in which his cell was kept in. Everyone else looked at her with such pity and confusion when she refused to put on one of the easier jobs, insisting that she could still interview the more dangerous criminals as long as it wasn't Joker.

She _hated_ him. She wanted to be rid of this fear, the clench in her gut that happened every time she so much as thought of him. But she couldn't, not yet.

Thankfully not everyone in Arkham was so volatile. Dangerous, but far less likely to try and use a pen to hold her hostage in an escape attempt.

"And what in the world makes you think _I_ know anything about Batman?" the man in front of her asked, slouching backwards in his chair with all the laziness of a cat. Harleen knew better than to trust it, though, especially when his file mentioned his love of theatrics.

"Because you play mind games with him all the time," Harleen replied patiently. "I would say aside from Joker it's a safe bet that you know the most about Batman that anyone else."

He laughed in delight, tilting his head back as he roared at the ceiling. "What a flattery, Doctor Quinzel! Tell me though, what demands an answer, yet asks no questions?"

Harleen tried not to sigh. That was the downside of asking Riddler anything, but she was more than willing to endure it if it provided her with anything. "Me?" she joked, figuring that the question was also a jab.

"Of course not!" Riddler gasped, looking genuinely surprised and offended at her answer. "A _phone,_ you silly! Honestly, you graduated with a noggin like that? Tsk, tsk." He gave her a sharp, analytical look that made her spine stiffen and reminded her that Riddler was anything but the playful trickster he liked to make himself out to be. There was a coldness to him that Joker distinctly lacked, and Harleen honestly had no clue which she preferred more.

She gave him a grin. "College turned it all to mush, I'm afraid. My riddles involved what makes the human brain tick, and no one ever gave me riddles quite as literally as you."

"Tick tock tick tock, your clock is running out, Doc," Riddler said, placing his ankle on his knee.

"Oh don't look at me like that, I don't mean anything dangerous by it. You've been caught in his web, haven't you?" He gave her a sharp, knowing grin. "Once the Bat's shadow passes over you, you never really escape it. He'll draw you back in eventually, no matter how long it takes. And you've gotten the attention of Joker as well. Two out of three, Quinzel. If you want my advice, I'd run as soon as possible. Find someplace better before those two titans come for you. Getting caught between them is the last thing a pretty girl like you wants."

His words made her gut clench again, and she forced herself to swallow and smile at him. His words struck deep, and their barbs hung on no matter how much she tried to banish them from her mind. "Thank you, but I think I'll be fine."

"Fine?" Riddler repeated with a laugh. "You're trying to dig up info on the Bat, you're anything but fine!" His grin stretched. _"When one does not know what it is, then it is something. When one knows what it is, then it is nothing."_

This time she was prepared for a riddle, and this time she made her brain _think._ "A riddle," she replied.

"Precisely!" Riddler exclaimed, clapping his hands together with a loud snap that almost made her jump. "I knew your brain was in there somewhere! And tell me Doctor Quinzel, who is the riddle?"

Harleen felt her expression shifting. "Batman," she said without hesitation.

"That's right. And once you know what he is, then he becomes much less interesting. Nothing, even. That's his beauty: his mystique. Stop digging, Quinzel. You'll only end up in disappointment."

Irritation pricked at her. She came here for answers, and while he did unwittingly provide her with one, she wasn't about to just sit around and let him berate her. _"Many have heard me, yet nobody has seen me. I won't speak back unless spoken to. What am I?"_ she asked, thanking herself for reading up on that book of riddles before she came to talk to him.

A long, dramatic sigh. "An echo. Fine, Doctor, you have made your decision." He tapped his fingers against his ankle. " _Driven he is and driven he will always be, and a more clever man I have yet to see._ _A shadow passing over the moon, for all his hard work he asks no boon. What drives his little heart? What takes it apart? This man I have seen, to me nearly a stone being, perched upon the highest peak like a gargoyle, yet in the wake of all his toil, his true character is shown, a man of flesh and bone."_

Harleen raised an eyebrow, impressive despite herself. "Poetry from you, Riddler? That's quite surprising."

"And why so, Doctor? I am a man of art, after all." He sucked his teeth as he smiled. "Just as he. One must be well-educated to solve my riddles, after all."

"Indeed," Harleen said, trying not to sound too excited in case Riddler decided to play around and rile her up. He was well-known for doing that. But she was indeed on the right track, if she was interpreting Riddler's hints correctly. "A man of flesh and bone. Flesh and bone can be hurt, unlike stone."

"Oh yes, Doctor, indeed," Riddler said, his lips pursing. " _What can be broken, but still work? Blood flows and flows, yet it does not die."_

"A heart," Harleen said without a moment of hesitation.

"Good, good," he replied with a small cackle. It reminded her far too much of Joker's. "His heart breaks. He bleeds and bleeds through the cracks but does not die. Outside, stone. But inside...soft."

Harleen griped her clipboard so tightly her fingers ached. "And just how do you that? What makes you so sure?" she questioned.

"No longer a phone, I see." He raised an eyebrow at her comically. "Because I _know,_ Doctor. I am a smart man. And I have _seen_ it. I have _watched_ his heart bleed." He waved his hand a little. "He _has_ to save people, he can't live without it. Understand that, and you understand him."

"If that was true then you would have gained the upper hand over him a long time ago," Harleen retorted. "It's an important part of him, but not his entire self."

"True enough, Quinzel. _It's best if you use me, but do keep me cool and especially don't lose me, because without me you're useless. What am I?"_

She tried not to sigh again. "Your brain?" she hazarded.

"Aha, close! Your _head,_ Doctor Quinzel. Take care not to lose it during your research."

-

Yet digging up info on Batman was far harder than she expected. She did build what she thought was a wonderful profile on him, yet despite what Deborah had told her she still had yet to see him again. It seemed like fate itself was against her. Every time she had a day off, or when she wasn't on her shift, he dropped by. Harleen would only hear about it later from the excited gossip of the others, and if she a more paranoid person she would have thought that Batman was deliberately avoiding her for whatever reason.

Which was utterly ridiculous. She was sure he didn't even know her name. If they passed each other on the street she doubted he would recognize her.

And in direct contradiction to that, Joker never left. He was unavoidable with where she worked, and eventually she did have to start walking by his cell. He always waved at her, crooned her name, and on one memorable occasion licked the glass of his door as she walked by. It was driving her slowly mad, having all of his attention on her like that. It didn't even feel like a real person was interested in her, more like a force of nature that was set on tearing her to pieces in the slowest, most agonizing manner possible.

She loved Arkham, with its strange, twisted charm. But when her investigation started to peter out into nothing and Metropolis offered her an incredible, well-paying position in one of their psych wards with a conspicuous lack of a crazy, obsessed clown as an inmate, she had to jump the ship.

So why did it feel so wrong to do so?

The paper was in her hands, her eyes glued upon it as she walked home. She barely read the words, it seemed like they were all sliding off her brain each and every time she tried. She wanted this, she tried to tell herself. And a part of her _did,_ but it also felt like such a waste. A waste of all her efforts these past few months, a waste of her talent, hell a waste of her _future._

A future of what? Another potential hostage when one of the many inmates decided to use her for their next breakout plan?

"If you just give it to me then this won't have to get ugly."

Her steps froze and she paused, just outside the mouth of an alley that the voice came from. She knew precisely what that sounded like, and knowing how late it was there could really be only one explanation and if Harleen knew what was good for her then she wouldn't try to interfere. But then again, when _did_ she ever know? Considering where she was currently (or perhaps formerly) employed then her ideas of self-preservation clearly left much to be desired.

Hand digging into her purse, she pulled out her phone and turned to look into the alley. She expected to see what her head would usually conjure up when imaging a mugging. An innocent victim, a rough looking man with a knife or perhaps even a gun, that sort of thing. For the most part she seemed to have it right. What she _didn't_ expect, however, was the can that the man was holding up to the woman's face as she dug shaking hands into her bag, tears streaming down her face. Was that a can of spray paint or something?

"What the _hell?"_ she was so surprised that she spoke the words out loud, although she wasn't aware of it until she saw the both of them tense up in alarm. Then panic hit her at being discovered and she blurted out the first words that her bravado demanded she say. "I'm calling the cops!" She turned on her phone and began dialing.

"Don't you dare, bitch!" the mugger snarled, whirling to face her, pointing his knife in her direction.

Reacting instinctively, panic hitting her for no good reason because he hadn't even _moved,_ Harleen gasped and threw her bag right at the man's face. That was a phenomenally stupid idea, and the only reason it worked was because none of them had been expecting it in the slightest. It hit home, slamming into the man's face, making him stumble a little and with that distraction his victim seemed to gain a tiny bit of courage and she wrenched away from him, bolting out of the alley and screaming at the top of her lungs as she fled down the sidewalk.

 _You're welcome,_ Harleen thought sarcastically, which was the only thing she got time to do before the mugger was upon her.

She shrieked and tried to back away, but instead of using the knife on her, like she was fully expecting him to, he sprayed her full in the face with whatever was in the can. It was _not_ paint, she immediately figured, but some kind of chemical that invaded her mouth and nostrils and sent her into a coughing frenzy.

Her head pounded. Dizzy. The world spun insane on its axis and right before her eyes was no longer a faceless man, but Joker wielding a knife. " _I'm going to cut you up nice and slow for that,"_ he hissed and cackled, holding the blade up for her to see.

A scream built in her chest, but would not come out. She was falling, falling...yet right before she lost consciousness completely, she saw a shadow pass over the moon.

 _"You need to get over yourself."_

 _She turned in the darkness, coming face-to-face with a woman wearing a red and black jester outfit, with a fully painted face that hid her features behind bold black and white patterns._

 _"What are you talking about? Who are you?" she demanded, feeling her heart racing. Something about her looked and sounded oddly familiar._

 _The woman shook her head, tut-tutting her a little. "Harleen, Harleen, you've got to embrace your inner harlequin if you want to move on with your life."_

 _"I don't get it," Harleen protested, trying to walk forward but her legs would move. "What do you mean?"_

 _"You'll find out soon enough."_


	3. The Road Less Traveled

Harleen wanted to say that she slowly came back to her consciousness, that the sounds around her and the chill of the bed she was laying on brought her slowly out of her state of stupor. That she was calm and collected, trying to figure out as much information as possible while still pretending to be asleep before she decided to reveal herself to whoever was around.

However, the truth was always much harsher and much more embarrassing. Both sensations seemed to come upon her in an instant: the freezing cold and the crushing feeling of being unable to breathe, as if her body remembered what had happened in the last few seconds before she passed out and decided to play catch up, and she came away at once with an explosive bought of coughing.

She heard a yelp of surprise nearby, along with a bit of a clatter and a strangely high voice yelling: "Batman!" Then a _force_ pressed down on her shoulders, sending her back down without slamming her against the thing she was laying on (definitely not a bed or anything like that, a part of her brain puzzled out) and holding her there effortlessly.

"Doctor Quinzel? I need you to breathe for me," a deep, rasping voice spoke her her and made her _stop_ because oh _Lord_ it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't—

She finally opened her eyes to look up at the white, narrow slits gazing down at her and Lord _really_ help her it most certainly _was._ Of course finally meeting Batman again after all these months the only thought her stupid brain could conjure up at the moment was: _wow he's big._

Seriously, what was that even supposed to mean? Was he tall or was he wide or whatever?

Actually, with more than a second of looking she observed that it had to be a bit of both. Batman was _looming_ over her in the truest sense of the word and she could clearly see from how tight his suit pressed against him and how his cape hung on him that he had to be _stacked._ With shoulders like that he could probably sling a horse over them and keep on going like usual. Did he do that to her? Oh God she hoped so but she also didn't.

She was being an idiot. She was being such an _idiot_ what part of the brain was in charge of all this fangirling? Dopamine overdose, the adrenaline, all of it? The limbic system, right. And the amygdala that _bastard._ At least this this time it wasn't reducing her to a crying mess, so that was a good start. The hippocampus too and—

Her lungs were on _fire_ she wasn't even _breathing—_

Just like that she sucked in a breath of air and noticed right away that it was horribly cold and dusty, and smelled unmistakably like rock and earth. Where in the world was she for a place to smell like that? Some sort of cave? She took another breath and another, feeling the ache subside and she used the moment to glance around with her eyes.

Oh, she _was_ in a cave, actually. Go figure. A cave filled with computers lining the wall and metal tables and really it was an utterly bizzare scene of a medical lab right in the middle of a dimly lit cave.

Batman was still there and still looking at her, his face impassive. Well that was good because honestly if Harleen had been in front of someone who had been as silent as her then she would have started to think they were a little crazy. He must have saved her though, so—

"Um," she started, her voice croaking due her throat being horribly dry and she tried to swallow it down. "Thank you for saving me, again," she said, trying to smile a little at him but it was coming out mangled and sheepish.

After a moment of scrutinizing—Harleen didn't see Batman's expression so much as twitch but she _felt_ the attention raking across her—he let go of her. She felt a brief moment of surprise, for some reason the fact that he _could_ move surprised her, even though she knew that was ridiculous. It was just his posture and how he stood, he could give a mountain pro tips on how to be still.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said, his voice somehow blending in perfectly to the shadows and stone and made this whole scenario feel much more real and less like a fever hallucination. As if he did this sort of thing all the time and she got herself into these types of situations all the time. "An untrained woman attacking a mugger? You're lucky he used his toxin first and not his knife."

"And yet I still saved her," she grumbled back, a part of her rankling in wounded pride. Another part of her cringed under his scolding, suddenly feeling very much like she was a little girl again being told off for doing something stupid by her understandably irate father, before her curiosity came back to life again. "What did you say he used?" she asked.

The slits narrowed a little, but Batman decided to answer her question. "Fear toxin," he explained. "It's what Scarecrow uses to torment his victims with: a mix of chemicals and drugs he disperses in the form of gas. It targets phobias specifically, and brings them to life with hallucinogenics that are added into the mix. Thankfully what you were dosed with is a far less potent version that's available on the black market. If it had been true fear toxin you would still be under its effects."

Something about the way he was speaking was utterly relaxing, although Harleen could tell he wasn't trying to be. His manner was dry as a sponge and cold, but it was so perfectly logical and assured that Harleen felt absolutely confident that she was in no real danger, even though she didn't understand a good part of what he was talking about.

It allowed her brain to think a little, and think it did on this particularly interesting piece of information. She felt her brows pulling into a confused frown as she tried to puzzle out what Batman had said. "That's very clever of him," she murmured, "how he can activate the parts of the brain that harbor our fears in such a narrow, specific way. Rather than simply making a victim feel overwhelming fear his drug affects phobias themselves, which are specific to each person. It's masterful."

"Indeed, Doctor Quinzel," Batman said dryly (oh God he _did_ remember her) and held out his hand. "Flashlight."

For a moment Harleen was utterly perplexed. His tone was clearly asking for a flashlight, but his hand wasn't even pointed _at_ her and what in the world made him think she had a flashlight of all things when she noticed movement from the corner of her vision. Oh goodness it was _Robin,_ how in the world did she miss him standing there the whole time? Was she really that mesmerized by Batman or was Robin just that good in being unnoticed?

Robin slapped a tiny flashlight into Batman's palm and immediately he approached her. "Look up," he ordered, not even waiting for her to obey while his hand grasped her chin and tilted her up.

She didn't even have time to think about how his touch was somehow both gentle and firm and whatever the fabric on his gloves were it felt _great_ when a bright, glaring light shone right in her eye. "Hey!" she protested, trying to jerk away but his fingers held firm.

The light moved to sear the retina of her other eye, now thoroughly blinding her while Batman took his sweet damn time trying to find out whatever he was looking for. "Your pupils are still a little dilated, but not enough that I would say you're in any danger of having an attack." He stepped away and she heard a clink as he (presumably) set the flashlight down. "Unfortunately, because this is a poorly made version of the toxin, it can linger in your body for much longer. Real fear toxin can leave your body in hours with no trace afterwards, but with this you can be feeling echos of symptoms for weeks."

She rubbed her eyes and found that it was useless in getting rid of the globs in her vision and instead focused her attention to where she thought she heard his voice coming from. "Does that mean I'll have to stay here?" she asked.

There was a snicker, one she knew had to come from Robin because at this point she was having a hard time imaging Batman doing so much as cracking a smile, let alone a laugh. Then there was a silence and oh, it was one of _those_ silences. The ones where she regretted ever learning how to speak in the first place.

"No," Batman said at last, like the blow of a hammer. "I will take you back to your apartment and you will get some rest. I have a medicine you can take against the effects—"

Something about the finality of his tone made her heart leap. It was like a professor wrapping up his lecture in the last five minutes before the bell rang, to a lesson she would never receive again. "Wait," she said, swinging her legs off the table and sliding off, nearly collapsing to the floor because she was still half blind and her foot banged against a stool on her way down. Yet she shoved herself up, trying to fight off the dizziness and weakness that sapped at her limbs, while a hand gripped her elbow and steadied her. "I can help you."

She had no idea why she just said that. It was desperation, throwing out any words she could imagine that could possibly make Batman pause even for a moment and consider his options. Her vision was clearing and she could now see the shock plainly written on Robin's face as he stared at her, despite the mask that covered his eyes.

The shadow in front of her turned and she saw the profile of Batman's face against the glare of a computer screen behind him. A jutting, square chin, with a jawline that could cut steel. The rest of his features were obscured by his mask, but she had the impression that he had to have a long, straight nose if the nose on his mask was conformed to it. Yet it was all thrown into the deepest black from the light behind him and all she saw was a sentinel, a figure out of Gotham City's mythology come straight to life only dump her back into her ordinary life and pretend nothing had happened.

Dammit, Riddler had been right the whole time. Of course he had been, the bastard. But if to consider the rest of his words, Harleen would much, much rather be here right now, more firmly under the influence of Batman than Joker coming for her again. She was indeed trapped with no way of escape, and the only way to go now was deeper down, right into the center of the spider's web. Or the bat and his cave, as it were.

"No, you cannot," Batman said at last, his rumble brooking no arguments. He turned back and she could physically feel the weight of his gaze lift off of her, like a blanket being taken off her shoulders. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

Now she might have been cowed if he had left his first words as they were, but that followup just made her _seethe._ "Excuse you," she said, straightening herself in a pathetic attempt to match him. But he was no Joker, he really was tall, the top of her head could have barely scraped his nose. "Have you seen where I work? Almost all the inmates in Arkham are people _you_ put there. You have to deal with them only when you catch them—and trust me there is not a single person who is not extremely grateful for it—but I have to handle them every single day. I work in the greatest melting pot of all of Gotham's finest scum, with a fine dash of Joker, Riddle, Two-Face, Bane, oh and _Clayface_ too, and believe me it is a headache trying to so much as feed him while making sure his disgusting gooey clay stuff doesn't crawl out the door."

She was trembling a little, righteous anger pouring through her veins as months of her pent up stress, anger, violation, and despair rose to a crescendo to come boiling out of her in an eruption of words. "And I signed up for it. I was not dumped into this life like you were, I knew what I was getting myself into and now I know even _better_ what I'm getting myself into. So don't you _dare_ treat me like a naive girl. You're not the only one who deals with these psychopaths, and you're definitely not the only person capable of helping this city out."

Wow, that felt good. That felt amazing, actually, to fling all those words into his face and let her justified anger burn out all of those nasty, disgusting thoughts from her head like about how weak and powerless she was when Joker had taken her, when—

No, she told herself, stopping that thought before it could run away from her again. She was not about to let herself keep being a victim. She meant what she said to Batman and she was going to prove it one way or another.

"If you are so certain about what this kind of life entails," Batman began, not even turning to face her this time, "then you should know well enough to run the opposite way."

Harleen gritted her teeth, feeling her jaw muscles clenching and unclenching under the pressure. However she managed to keep her voice pretty calm, which she considered a pretty good achievement since the alternative was to start screaming at him and no one needed that. "So to you it's either don't get involved because you don't know what you're getting yourself into, or don't get involved because you _do._ Are you even listening to yourself?"

"Sounds perfect," Batman replied, his hands absently gathering up a plastic bottle that rattled with pills whenever he moved it. "We're leaving. Get to the car."

"Don't you change the subject on—"

"The _car, now."_

Something about that snarl made her snap immediately to obey even thought she was still very angry at him for completely justified reasons. Harleen moved quickly, following him at a fast walk because quite frankly his steps _ate_ the ground and it was all she could do to force herself not to jog to keep up and make herself look even more incapable than she already did to him. How in the world was Robin able to stay at his side so effortlessly? And how was he able to do it while being only half her height? This was so unfair.

She had no idea where they were going and was content to stay a step or two behind so they could lead and to give her an excuse to crane her head around to take in everything she could. They left the medical lab, which put them a small hallway that then widened out into the main room and oh, these caves were a _lot_ bigger than she thought they were. Now she had absolutely no idea where to look, there was just so much to see everywhere!

Along one wall, the entire wall actually, there was an enormous computer with various screens depicting different parts of the city and—wait he had cameras in Arkham?! What the hell?!

There were various other openings along the walls of the main room, no doubt other branches leading off into parts unknown for other rooms for Batman to do his...Batman things she guessed. What did the Caped Crusader need in order to keep all of Gotham City's crime rate in check with his only help being a boy who could not possibly be more than ten years old?

And the cars, not even cars but boats and motorcycles and _was that a plane?_ A plane in the shape of a bat? Who even _was_ this man? A whole row of vehicles just lines up here like it was nobody's business but his, did he ever come screeching out of this cave in a godforsaken _plane_ and no one noticed? Was there a runway outside or were these caves just ridiculously huge? Where did Gotham City even have caves anyway? Harleen had never heard of anything like that.

Unless they weren't in Gotham at all at this point. With all of this crazy stuff crammed into this cave she couldn't imagine them being anywhere near the city, especially not with a _plane_ (she was never going to get over that) needing room to fly once the door opened. Maybe the outskirts? Gosh who knew at this point, honestly.

It wasn't the plane that made her stop in her tracks, though, but something else entirely. Something so bizarre that it froze every muscle in her body as she tried to process it.

"Hey guys?" she finally managed to croak out when she got her jaw to start moving again. She saw the both of them pause and turn in a perfect synchronization that was both very cool and a little disturbing. Refusing to dwell on it though, she gestured vaguely to the structure whose silhouette was thrown against the ceiling from one of the nearby lights. "What's up with the giant T-rex?"

Robin snickered again and she felt more than saw Batman's sigh. "It's a long story," Robin offered, his voice surprisingly light and cheerful in the depths of the cave. Yet it somehow fit in with the whole picture, despite the scowling man standing at his side and the crime world they often lived in. Like a counterpoint of light to add to all the darkness.

Batman's face moved the barest inch, as if sending a quick glare at his sidekick for speaking at all, to which Robin shrugged to and they turned back around. "It's not important," Batman said and kept walking, his posture expectant.

For that alone she grit her teeth, but kept walking anyway. Harleen figured that Batman was exactly the type of person to really sling her over his shoulder and carry her out of here if she felt like being difficult, and she would rather be carried around by him in a much...different way. God she wished she could _punch_ her brain sometimes.

Cheeks burning, she prayed that they wouldn't turn around again when suddenly the duo stopped in front of one of the many Batmobiles parked in the cave and this one she was actually familiar with. It was the one he had driven when he rescued her from Joker, and no stranger to the newspaper articles and lucky footage news cameras could get. Harleen wondered if there was some sort of regular, "standard" Batmobile here or if this one was just the most comfortable to use within the depths of Gotham. It was sleek and beautifully curved, black as pitch and glossy as obsidian, with a pair of bat wing designs sweeping back above the back wheels for no reason she could imagine other than being stylish.

Were they really about to take the Batmobile? Was she about to ride in it? This was all like some crazy dream this had to be she was about to wake up any moment and—

The front door popped open and Batman slid right into the front seat effortlessly as if it was something he did every day oh what was she talking about of course he did this everyday Batman literally had the best job on the entire planet. There was a moment of pause, lasting barely longer than a breath, but she sensed it. So did Robin, as he paused in mid-step from walking around the front of the car. "You stay here," Batman ordered.

So he was that straight to the point with his assistant too. Interesting. Or perhaps he was just being in character because they had an audience? Or, who knows...With someone as deeply affected as she guessed Batman to be, maybe for him, whoever he really was, he and Batman were one and the same. Maybe what had started out as a hidden persona to stand up against the evils of the world and cope with whatever had happened to him in the past turned and morphed into his true self now. After all whatever had happened to him to make him become Batman had stripped him of whatever power he had, like many victims of trauma, and why wouldn't he discard that old, vulnerable self to become the invincible, all-knowing, omnipresent terror in the night that had villains trembling in the darkest alleys?

Robin crossed his arms, just as petulant as his young, boyish self demanded. At least Batman hadn't rubbed off on him yet. "Why?" he demanded in that tone that any boy could take the second he was confronted on something. "We can drop her off and then go back to patrol—"

"Enough," Batman cut him off, his tone brooking no arguments. "You need to stay here and watch the monitors. Notify me if anything comes up while I'm gone."

There was an argument brewing here, but Harleen could see that Robin was making an effort not to say anything and this time she _knew_ it was because she was there. Without another word Robin turned around and she felt, for just a second, his glare as his gaze lingered on her before he stalked off to the giant computer taking up the wall. She watched his retreating figure, and noted that when he was angry he looked startlingly like his mentor: squaring his shoulders and trying to loom and everything.

A part of her wanted to have a word with him on the psychology of children and how their behavior could be affected by the behavior of the adults they were surrounded with, but his voice broken through her thoughts and scattered them to the winds. "Get in."

And that was how she found herself sitting the most comfortable seat she had ever had the pleasure of sitting in. This had to be real leather, there was no way it was anything but.

Batman flipped some sort of switch (there were _far_ to many of those for a simple car, Harleen was afraid touch anything) and the glass, already tinted, turned pitch black.

 _Well great, that's cool and all but how are you supposed to see where you're going?_ a sarcastic part of her brain snapped, and she was on the very edge of saying it when Batman look out some sort of visor and slid it over his eyes. Then he started the car, the engine roaring to life under them, and she was shoved against her seat as they shot forward.

In the darkness of the car, Batman's hands turned the wheel, and Harleen heard something hitting the car that she could only describe as them suddenly blasting through some sort of car wash, and then they were clearly on the road as the ride was smooth and long and there was no noise except the engine as they drove. Clearly Batman could see what he was doing somehow since they hadn't flattened themselves against a wall like a pancake, and Harleen guessed it had something to do with the visor. Was he really so paranoid that he had this whole setup where he could have someone in his car and they couldn't track him because he blacked out his windows completely?

The ride was exactly as awkward as she expected. Batman was completely silent, almost as if she wasn't there at all. Occasionally his hands moved the wheel, he sped up or slowed down, but oddly he never stopped. She had no idea how in the world anyone could drive through Gotham City without getting caught by a street light or stop sign, and she had never actually heard any tales that went: _"Hey one time I was at a red light and no joke the Batmobile pulled up right next to me I swear I'm not making this up."_

She stared at her reflection in the glass of the window, and felt her heart beginning to race when she saw that it wasn't quite her. Her face kept shifting before her eyes, going from her anxious, uncertain face to a makeup marked, grinning woman who looked at her knowingly. As if she should know who this phantom wearing her face was supposed to be.

He did say the hallucinations would continue...

"You know—" she started, the silence starting to drive her crazy.

"No."

"No?" she repeated, turning to face him. "What are you talking about?"

"You're about to ask me to let you join again. The answer is still no."

This time her anger was boiling over, snapping like the last bit of delicate thread. "Now you—"

"We're here," he said suddenly, his foot finally hitting the brake and slowing them to a stop. He hit another switch and her door popped open. "You should go back to your apartment, Doctor, and keep safe this time."

She was so furious she could have hit him, but instead she merely snapped her seatbelt off and jumped out of the car, but just as she turned around, mouth open, she saw him holding out the bottle of pills in his hand. "Take these," he went on. "For the symptoms of the toxin."

For a long moment she stared, before finally reaching out and taking them from him. "You know what's funny?" she asked conversationally as she looked for any sort of label and of course found nothing. "How easily our lives can be ripped apart by a single, senseless act."

She looked up at him, at those white, expressionless slits in the mask and this time she did not look away. She forced herself not to. "That's what happened to me with Joker, and I bet that's what happened to you, too. That's why you're like this. That's why you developed Batman, not only as a way to comfort yourself, to prove to yourself that you are strong and tough and powerful and not a victim, but also to make sure it never happened to anyone else." She placed her hand on her hip. "I bet it happened when you were a child, and ever since you always wished you were someone else, someone who would have been big enough, fast enough, and smart enough to stop whatever had happened on that night."

Alright she didn't know if the trauma she was sure he went through happened at night, but that was the only time Batman came out so it was a good guess. "And that's what you've become now, and it doesn't fix what happened in the past, and while you want to make the future better you still carry that old bitterness in you. You were no more a volunteer to this type of life than I was when Joker took me hostage." She squeezed her hip, terrified, but not backing down. "And I refuse to be a victim no less than you do, Batman."

There was a long, pregnant pause, filled with her words that somehow—she felt it—were neither empty nor entirely missing the mark. Then Batman finally moved. "Goodnight Doctor Quinzel," he said, breaking the silence between them but not what lay in silence between them. The door closed and the Batmobile roared and then sped off into the night, gone within seconds as if it had never been there at all.

Harleen watched it go. She scowled, then looked down at the pills in her hand. With a scoff, she threw them into the nearest trash bin and turned to go inside her apartment block.

Let the symptoms come. She would deal with them.


	4. Harlequin Rising

Right, gymnastics. That was the very first thing she had to get back into. She had seen some of the crazy stunts Batman liked to pull and caught a few glimpses of his crazy gear. If she was going to survive jumping around in the urban jungle after him she had to have her body in the right shape for it. Harleen signed up for a gym membership that night, particularly one that had acrobatics, and decided to see if there were any tutors for parkour in the area. There had to be, Gotham was practically famous for all of its gargoyles and statues all over the skyscrapers, at least several famous parkour artists came from here.

When she walked into Arkham the next day she was smiling, genuinely smiling, to the point where some of the others were tentatively asking her if she was okay while others were clearly relieved. The one who had the greatest smile of them all, though, was her. The one in the mirrors and reflections who was not her, the harlequin with the makeup and confident tilt of her head. The Harleen that Harleen did not know, but the one she wanted to be. She was confident, head held high, and always looked on with approval at what Harleen was doing, black-painted lips pulled into a wide smile.

Echoes were coming back to her, though, just as Batman warned. At one point she whirled around and nearly shrieked when she came face to face with a grinning Joker looming over her, every single tooth in his jaw visible. Instead of screaming or cowering, though, Harleen's first instinct was to slam her clipboard into his face as hard as she could, and that was when she came to realize he was just a vision when her attack went right through him as if he was made of smoke.

God she hoped this wouldn't become a regular thing. However, she was incredibly proud of herself for not cowering this time and for fighting back. Good job, brain, you show those traumatic memories who's boss!

But she wouldn't go into Joker's cell yet. That was far too soon. She would make him wait.

She handed her resignation back into Arkham and told him that she had reconsidered, that she wanted a permanent position in Gotham, instead. He barely looked up from his work, but she heard the approval and relief in his voice as one of their best young doctors decided to stay. "So few of them do," he added with a smile.

 _I can't imagine why,_ Harleen did not say as she thanked the director and showed herself out. _Anyone who stays here for any length of time is cracked in the head. Doesn't matter whether they're the patients or staff._

Weightlifting was _utter torture,_ holy moly. How in the world did Batman manage to do this so often to look like he did? She knew he had to have some sort of routine, probably squirreled away in that crazy cave of his. Schwarznegger would have _wept_ at the sight of the Caped Crusader, in pure male pride. Meanwhile Harleen was burning her muscles to cinders just through a few of these routines, but she had to build muscle.

It took her a week or two to rethink her position, and realize that she was being kind of an idiot. And not from her own insight, either, even though she sorely wished it had been.

"What is the definition of insanity, Doctor?" Riddler asked her casually as she sat in front of him once more.

She didn't look up from her note taking. She had already written a detailed analysis of him the last time she had been in here, and while jotting down a few more details never hurt, it was not the main reason she had come in here.

Her list was growing bigger by the minute. _Strengths:_ _Intelligence!_ _, insight, charisma, knows how to get under people's skin, knows how to make himself seem harmless, Intelligence._ She had to write that twice because she was quickly realizing the more she talked to Riddler the more she realized that everyone else was a complete _idiot_ for downplaying him compared to other titans such as Joker and Scarecrow and Killer Croc. That was precisely what Riddler wanted, to go unnoticed, to be seen as the good one. That was why he escaped so many times and why each and every time everyone was so surprised. For goodness sake Harleey was half-certain that he could make a pretty good escape attempt right this minute, if he actually wanted to. It did not slip her notice that unlike every single other inmate here, whenever Riddler escaped it always took Batman a _while_ to bring him back, and always when he caught him in the middle of some other scheme of his.

 _Weaknesses: psychological compulsion to tell riddles and the truth. Narcissism. Can be easily flattered. Physically weak._

"The dictionary says 'a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder,'" she replied absently as she wrote. "But, knowing you, you don't mean that. Let's try Einstein's definition: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Am I close?"

"Bingo! You're good!" Riddler said with a laugh, lounging sideways in his chair. "So tell me Doctor Quinzel, why do you persist in trying to build up your physical strength? You will never compete or even come close to matching Batman in taking down criminals."

Her pen stopped writing. She did _not_ look up, did not acknowledge him because she knew flattering his ego was a mistake. He already knew he got her, the best to do was to minimize his victory as much as possible. He also already knew the truth, lying to Riddler when he clearly knew something was an utter waste of time. Playing along with his game was far, far better with the results. "And why do you think so?" she asked pleasantly, leaning backwards.

"Because you're a woman," Riddler said with absolutely no sugar coating whatsoever.

That finally made her lift her eyes, and Riddler grinned at her, a chuckle escaping his lips. "I fail to see your point," Harleen said, forcing her voice to stay calm.

"Of course you do," Riddler replied, sounding bored. "Athena you are not, Quinzel, more like Aphrodite with your swooning." He grinned a little at whatever expression he saw on her face. "Batman exercises to build his muscle because he's a _man,_ he is fully capable of punching villains with his barbaric fists and winning in fights with them because that's what he is made to do. No matter what our current modern ideals tell us, Quinzel, you will never be able to match him in physical strength no matter how hard you try." He leaned forward, grinning. "Riddle me this: What common trait makes the wolf, the hawk, the snake, the shark, such successful hunters?"

Quinzel frowned a little. It wasn't really much of a riddle, but she decided to think. "They're all different animals with different methods of hunting, living in vastly different environments. There really isn't much in common between them," she said with a shrug.

Riddler scowled at her. "Oh really Doctor, is that all you can think of?" he said derisively. "You'll never be an assistant to Batman like that."

She was going to hit _him_ with her clipboard if he kept that up. She curled her toes in her boots and bit the inside of her cheek to keep calm. Alright, _fine,_ she would play his game. Considering how different all the animals were scientifically, there had to be some sort of similarity that was fairly asinine and more metaphorical than anything.

Wait, he had already given her that one. They were all hunters, he had _said_ it. And they were successful because of how they had evolved to—"They're successful because they play to their strengths," she replied, meeting his eyes. "The hawk uses its eyes and wings so it may strike where no one sees it, the shark can smell blood from miles away and its teeth are razor sharp for rending prey, the—"

"Yes yes, you get the point!" Riddler said, waving his hand dismissively. "A man's advantage is in his physical strength, his size. Nothing a woman will ever hope to match, but she has her own set of strengths too." He looked at her knowingly.

Harleen was trying very, very hard not to look stupidly stunned by what he was saying. Of _course_ it made sense, everyone had their own strengths and weaknesses and someone didn't need to be physically strong in order to get the better of an opponent in a brawl. After all Riddler himself was as thin as a rake, Harleen doubted he could even move his own couch without needing help, and he could, would, and often _did_ wipe out whole teams of officers before Batman would swoop down to apprehend him just because he knew how to _fight._

She would have to also enroll in a self-defense class later. In fact the whole method of teaching in those was about acknowledging a woman's natural disadvantages when facing against a man, and teaching her to use her natural advantages.

And what was her strength? Her gymnastics. Her flexibility. Her guile, her psychologist brain. Riddler made up for his lack of muscle by using weapons like his cane, she was going to have to learn how to fight with something similar, as well. Even Batman could do that. He had his Batarangs and who knew whatever else was packed away in that crazy belt.

Why Riddler had decided to give her another push, Harleen had no idea. The whole situation seemed to just amuse him, and if he was half as clever as she thought he was (which was also simultaneously five times smarter than most people thought he was) then he was no doubt _bored out of his mind_ sitting in his cell for some kind of opportunity that only he knew how to identify in order to escape. Riddler liked messing with people, liked forcing their minds to think in paths he set before them and controlled. That's why he often spoke in riddles, it was his way of controlling others while he held all the cards. Why he was setting her feet on the path that could very well end up with the two them eventually facing down as enemies she had no idea, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Back in her apartment, she frowned at herself in the mirror, in front of the outfit she was trying on. Red and blue jacket with red and blue shorts. Squares of color, unmatching, asymmetrical. Pigtails, caked white makeup on her skin, heels and shorts—no no, too impractical. But crazy was what she was going for, right?

Maybe she should dye her hair. Or not dye it, dye the ends?

No no, that was silly.

Red and black, perhaps? A corset to show her figure, ponytails once more...red and black hair? Maybe one of her leather jackets to go over it?

She held the outfit in front of her, then ended up throwing that one on the bed too.

Maybe a tutu? She looked so cute in a tutu! Where was that old one she showed up to last year's Halloween party in? Chainsaw massacre ballerina Barbie!

That made her pause for a moment in thought. Well, she certainly couldn't say she _didn't_ fit into Arkham, at least a little.

Harleen tapped her chin in thought, then simply sighed and tossed it aside. Maybe later.

She scrapped her muscle building routine, instead focusing on her gymnastics and her exercises that affected the whole body, not just things that built up arm and leg muscles. She was going to have her whole body be a weapon, something that would always be ready no matter what was going to be thrown at her.

Also she took up those self-defense and martial arts classes she said she would. How she was even managing to _sleep_ at this rate was beyond her, she was dead tired every time her face hit the pillow. How in the world Batman managed this kind of life was beyond her. Oh wait, that was right, he _had_ no life. Now she was absolutely certain of it, there was no way he could manage a damn job at this rate unless he was totally insane and had coffee on an IV drip stashed somewhere on his person. Knowing him she wouldn't be terribly surprised, but it was much more logical to assume that he just had his Batman persona as most of his life. Whatever he had to do in the public eye must have been relatively minor.

Yet while her muscles ached, after a while the burn went away. It started to feel less like she was forcing a badly rusted machine into doing something and more like she had polished and oiled it beforehand before revving it up. Harleen simply felt stronger, faster, better in what she was doing. Her mind felt sharper, her movements quicker, and she felt less and less vulnerable each time she flattened one of her teachers after learning a new lessons.

Joker was going to get one _hell_ of a surprise the next time he tried to jump her. If he was going to bother to.

Maybe a full body suit? She needed to hide her identity as well, after all. These criminals were vindictive, and many of them already knew her name and face. She had to hide some of it at least. Black and red, she liked that combination, and the white makeup. But didn't that look a little too much like Joker?

Or maybe that was the point. Taking him, taking what terrified her in him, and making it into her own identity, her own strength. She would use it against him.

A cute little jester hat, perhaps? Or was that overdoing it? She glanced at herself in her mirror again. A bunch of bells would be _awfully_ cute. But...nothing was final yet. She decided to look at what was on the internet later.

"Hey there Doc. Whatcha smilin' all to yourself for?" Joker's voice leered at her from the glass of his cell as she walked by. "You look so pretty like that. Must have been somethin' special, huh?"

Harleen froze in her tracks, her heart giving a huge thud against her ribs. Joker couldn't stand seeing her in a good mood. Every time he saw her smiling or having even a remotely nice day he would try his best to say something to her, to inflame her, or to simply remind her that he still existed and was watching her. That he had his claws in her still.

Quite frankly, she was starting to get tired of it. She needed to be _done_ with him, to wash her hands of his filth forever.

"You have such a sweet smile, Doctor Quinzel," Joker whispered. She could _hear_ his grin. "I miss it so much. It makes me wanna _talk_ to you."

She closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. You know what? He wanted a fight, then fine. She could play that game. She would take his game and _beat_ him at it.

Still smiling, Harleen turned around slowly and met his gaze. It was cold, chilling, and black, and she forced herself not to cringe from it. "I'd like to talk to you too, Joker," she replied, adjusting her glasses and readying her clipboard.

Of course, even if Joker was phased by her sudden change in behaviour, he didn't show it at all. Instead he just grinned and grinned, ever wider until it looked as if his face would split from it. "Oh Doctor Quinzel," he purred as he opened his mouth and _licked_ the glass door, "you spoil me."

Five minutes later she found herself in the chair in front of him again, but this time with two heavily armed guards flanking her. It didn't make her feel that much safer, to be honest. If anything the fact that Joker didn't seem to give a damn about them being there was an even bigger indicator that it was a pointless gesture. Or maybe he was bluffing. Harleen wouldn't put it past him at all. She did take a small bit of satisfaction in knowing that even if he did somehow manage to leap out of his chair (he was chain to it this time but let's be honest it wasn't like that really stopped him) and kill her then he would most likely be joining her soon after. These guards had twitchy trigger fingers.

She wrote quickly and fluidly, mapping out traits that she had already discovered a long time ago but refused to write down.

 _Strengths: insanity, deviousness, cleverness, ruthless, cold, willing to do absolutely anything to get what he wants._

 _Weaknesses: insanity, mania, easily distracted, can be flattered, narcissism, obsession with Batman._

"Whatcha got there, Doc?" Joker asked with a small chuckle as she scribbled on her paper. "Not gonna change my medicines again, are ya? I like these, they don't make me sleep like the others do."

"With how you like to howl at night, that might actually be a good idea," Harleen replied mildly, once again not looking up. "You disturb the other patients."

"But I don't like sleeping when I don't want to, Quinzel," Joker whined, pitching his voice in that needling way that made the hairs on her spine stand up. "I get all cranky and upset when I'm forced to sleep and I'm not tired. Makes me all grumpy when I wake up later."

At least to give him credit, he was absolutely correct in that regard. That was actually why the staff went through so much effort to give him medication that didn't put him to sleep. Joker always got notoriously, dangerously volatile and angry whenever he would wake up after a medically-induced rest. To the point where he had to be strapped down to his bed to stop him from harming people (and himself) and at one point he chewed his way out of his straps and managed to escape the asylum because no one had bothered to watch him. That was probably one of the senior staff's favorite stories out of him, considering it got passed around at least once every other week.

"Some chamomile always works wonders with me," she said lightly, finally turning his eyes up to look at him. Mostly because with how far he was bending down to try and look at her she was afraid he was going to hurt himself and that wouldn't go well on her record at all, no matter how much he deserved it. "Herbal remedies are safe and effective, perhaps I'll talk to the kitchen about it."

"Mmm chamomile, a flower," he replied, tilting his head with a smile that _might_ have been considered pleasant on him. At the very least none of his teeth were showing. "You're a bit like a flower yourself, Doctor Quinzel," he added conversationally, pushing the tips of his feet against the floor in an attempt to push his chair on two legs. It sort of worked, but with how tightly chained he was to the chair he couldn't move very far.

Great, what sort of fresh hell was this? "Thank you," she said, knowing it was best to remain pleasant with him. "You are too," she continued, her smile still in place. "Like nightshade."

Joker cackled a little, no doubt enjoying being compared to a poison, but Quinzel didn't have time to regret her words before he was looking back up at her with those wide eyes, black pools of ink swimming in viscous red-veined milk. "You're delicate, soft, like a flower," he explained, his lips curling and his teeth starting to appear. Like a tiger drawing back its fangs. "All ready to be...plucked."

Bile rose up in her and it took every scrap of her restraint not to hit him with her board, and yet with how he _breathed_ the words, so hot and heavy and clearly _enjoying_ the mental image they brought, she wanted to scream and run and never see him again. She could barely hear the growl of one of her guards next to her, no doubt saying something threatening, while she could almost physically feel the sweat starting to pour out from her skin while her heart raced frantically in her chest.

It was like she was trapped in his grip again. How was he always able to do that to her? To make her nearly lose herself with just the mere threat of him?

Just like before Batman came and rescued her. Like—

Then her thoughts ground to a halt as she instinctively, like a drowning person clutching and leaping at the first bit of driftwood to float by, hooked onto that stray thought. The one thing that was able to blot out all distracting thoughts like nothing else could: of Batman.

She remembered his voice. Remembered how his hands felt on her when they were holding her, even if they had been holding her down. She remembered his stubbornness, his infuriating coldness, his calm, his impassivity, his pure and unbreakable _strength_ against the dark insanity that was Gotham City. She remembered his shadow over the moon.

He would not give in to Joker's taunts. He never would, because he always kept his calm under every situation, used his brain. Because he was better than his fears and his trauma. And so was she.

As if that final piece was the last bit of the puzzle she needed, like the final chunks of garbage being thrown into a smelting pit to be melted down to make something better, she felt her fears slowly draining away. Oh it would take more than that before she would finally be truly free of him, but now? Joker had _no_ power over her.

"I'm sorry, Joker," she said in an utterly calm, controlled voice as she gathered her clipboard. "But you are being very inappropriate right now. "I'm afraid I will have to cancel this session, until you learn how to behave yourself."

 _This_ time she saw it. The confusion, the shock at her reply not being the one he expected. It was brief, a blink-and-you-miss it moment of Joker losing his footing, before it was gone and replaced with a terrifying black rage that clawed at the back of her head as she gathered her things and left. It followed her until she finally turned down into a different hall and escaped the force of his gaze.

She took a moment to rest against the wall, panting ever so slightly with a smile on her face. One of her guards asked if she was okay, and all she could do was _laugh._

The drive back to her apartment felt much shorter than it usually did. Everything did, in fact. The city felt brighter, the air cleaner, her own body more weightless as she effortlessly raced up her stairs, slid her key into the lock on the very first try, and flung open her door.

Of course she was _starving_ and bothered to take a few minutes to order some pizza (she liked her to include salmon and broccoli because she loved her brain to be in top shape, thank you very much) before she skipped off to her room.

All of the outfits she had thrown around during the last few days were there. Many of them a mish-mash of older pieces of different outfits she had put together, while some of them she had made herself. She had a bit of practice in sewing due to a brief love of it during her early teen years, but it was kind of like riding a bicycle. When she started it, she took right off with it.

Black and red. Her colors. The black of Batman, of Gotham's night that he frequented so often. Red as a gaudy, flashy warning. Red like Robin. Red like the smile of Joker. Black and red, like diamonds and spades. Hearts and clubs. Her suit was finally finished and laying on the bed in front of her, waiting. Full body, just like she wanted, fitting her like a second skin so no stray scrap of clothing would get caught on anything when she was flipping around.

Really Batman, that cape was flashy and intimidating as hell but it _had_ to be inconvenient. Or maybe not. Harleen had a feeling that no one but him would ever manage to make it work.

Sliding into it was easy and comfortable, and her zipper was along her shoulder, hidden by the wide white collar she had sewn into it to cover where it was. Before she pulled up her hood (she had forgone the idea of a jester cap to merely make it part of her whole outfit instead) she had to finish her makeup first, though. Well, she used the term loosely. White face paint was not really a true makeup, but she still hade makeup involved so it still counted a little!

She painted her face in broad, excited strokes, watching in delight as the pale, shimmering white covered her skin, hiding any features that might have made her recognizable. How much people relied on what they were used to seeing, in order to identify someone! She barely could tell that it was herself! When she had it good and thickly painted on she waited for it to dry some, before setting it with a white face powder. Then came the lipstick. She couldn't find a single brand out there that was dark and glossy enough for her, so she made one herself. Vaseline and black, glittering eyeshadow worked absolute _wonders_ and allowed her to paint her lips in a far more precise shape than any tube of lipstick could.

When it was finally dry, she tied up her hair, put it under her wig cap, and then flipped up her hood, making sure it fit just as snugly around her head as she measured it. Oh, perfect. There was no way it was going to randomly fall off or slide off her head like this, if anything she had an extra collar just for that. She giggled and flicked one of the bells at the end of her jester hat, listening to it tingle happily.

As her final touch, she slid her black mask on her face. It was little more than an eye-mask with holes cut into it, but the effect was more than enough, and the new Harley Quinzel was staring at her from the mirror with a bright, cheerful smile and a wicked glint in her gaze.

No no, not Harleen Quinzel. Harley Quinn. That's what her name would be. The little harlequin to tail Batman and give the criminals of Gotham one more thing to fear in the night.

She looked at herself and laughed a little, spinning around to look at herself.

Yes, she was _ready._


	5. Curtain Call

"Hey Boss?" a small, weasel-like voice broke out over the shadows of the dimly-lit theatre, its owner trying to hide the nervous quiver to his words and failing. "We're got this new batch almost done. You want us to start bottling it now and box it up?"

There was a figure standing at the edge of the stage, overlooking the empty seats as if he could imagine a captive audience in front of him. However he was barely visible while he hugged the very edge of the shadows, until he turned his head and the movement of his body gave him away. A dry, raspy chuckle came from him, not at all helped by the strange phlegmy noise in his throat that just made everyone's stomach clench listening to it. "You can if you want," the figure's voice hissed, each word scraping out of his mouth like sandpaper. "Just know that hot liquid being poured into cold glass can crack it, and then the solution will be all over you."

The small group of men winced and looked to one another, then to the table they had set up in the middle of the room. The bright lamp on it provided the only real light in the theatre, like a little halo bathing them in a soft glow while they concocted visions of hell inside of the beakers and equipment strewn across the surface. There was beaker of clear liquid was a centerpiece to it all, hardly 500 milliliters full, yet worth more than a hundred times its weight in gold to those who were willing to pay for it. Despite how ordinary it seemed, the men clutched their masks closer to their faces and stared at it with fearful, suspicious eyes. It sat serenely over a small burner which was heating it just enough for the liquid to be hot and small wisps of steam to rise from the surface, but not to boil. Boiling would ruin it.

And Scarecrow's toxins had to be perfectly prepared each time, or else.

"And if _that_ doesn't kill you," Scarecrow continued, his shoes tapping very softly against the fake wood of the theatre floor, "then _I_ will."

His eyes, wide and very green as they peered out of the holes cut into his burlap mask, glared at them all unblinkingly. The whites were tainted with a haze of yellow and his blood vessels stood starkly against them, but his gaze was clear and sharp and missed absolutely nothing.

They all nodded, for a moment looking quite ridiculous and sycophantic to Scarecrow. A part of him wanted to come over and knock the beaker off the table just to see what their reactions would be. But that would be pointless, a pleasant five minutes of amusement and giddiness as he would watch them panic, and then they would all be dead. Too short and boring. The toxin on the table was simply too potent to give any sort of meaningful, drawn out reactions to take note of and study, victims would just simply panic until they died. Just a drop or two diluted into a gallon of liquid was more than enough to send any victim into nonstop hysterics for fifteen hours, and that wasn't even counting the after effects and all else that would take place.

Perhaps when they were all done, he could indulge his fantasy for a bit. No point in wasting two weeks' worth of effort in a single moment of childish behavior. Who did he look like, Joker? No, no, they were going to finish the mixture, package the final solution for their customers, then leave. By the barrel for gangs who wanted an edge on their rivals in their endless battles for territory, the cheapest and the weakest of the products he offered. But then in contained spray canisters, in vials meant to explode on contact, even in little darts to put inside tranquilizer guns-that was where the real money was-and where his very nice customers came out of the shadows. Even Two-Face was supposed to drop by later, although Scarecrow would make him _eat_ a vial of finished toxin if he tried to get out of paying by doing his inane coin flips again.

Of course with no true answer given, just a threat and "for them to decide," the lackeys decided to take the safer bet and took the beaker off the burner so it would cool, topping it with a lid so no moisture whatsoever could escape. A smart move, even if a time-consuming one. Gotham's most popular theatre was not an ideal place to be, but it was the only place they could afford to be at the moment without getting caught. Anyone seeing activity inside of an abandoned building could report them to the police or, worse, gangs could show up to interrupt their work, and most places in the denser parts of Gotham tended to rub elbows with exactly the kind of people and establishments Scarecrow would rather not have around.

This place, though, was nice and quiet. A large parking lot around the building so there were no neighbors immediately nearby, and its back was facing a mall that had closed for the night. Nothing bad from that side, either.

Not that it ever truly stopped trouble, if it ever wanted to arrive.

The hours crawled by slowly, as Scarecrow and his "assistants" (he snorted at the term) methodically filled and labeled every container with the toxin. Twenty barrels, each with a squirt of toxin inside from an eyedropper, then onto the spray cans. Still a good squirt, but it was much more concentrated amount due to the smaller size of the cans, then filled with compressed gas which was a tedious, slow process that really was what took up most of the time when they were busy with this kind of work.

Scarecrow alone handled his own personal vials and darts. He sat in a chair by himself, carefully dipping a brush into a shot glass filled with pure toxin and painting the tips of his darts in it, and alternatively taking tiny glass vials and filling them up with half toxin, and half dilution. The most powerful and potent of all the mixes except maybe save the darts, and only he seemed to know the proper amount that was needed, all done by either memory or a method he knew in his head alone.

The night was dragging on past midnight and into the late hours when even the hardiest of bar hoppers were going to sleep when their work was nearing completion and they had stashed their finished products further back on the stage, away from any danger, prying eyes, and even potential thieves.

"There we go, boss," a large, burly man said who seemed to be in a constant state of about to explode through the seams of his suit, which looked to be about two sizes too small for him. "Should I start making the calls for the bastards to come pick up their stash?"

Scarecrow turned, once more standing upon the edge of the halo, and thus his eyes burned oddly under the shadow his wide-brimmed had threw upon his face. They seemed to be floating amidst the darkness. "Obviously," he said, his voice crackling upon the last syllables of the word. "Unless you wish to stand here all night?"

Just then, as if his words were some kind of cue for something, what little light was in the theatre cut off, plunging them all into a thick, encompassing darkness. There were swears and the sound of a glass breaking, as if the absence of light immediately lowered one's intelligence and caused them to stumble about like toddlers just learning how to walk. "Be careful!" Scarecrow hissed, digging in his bag for his night vision mask. "If any one of those vials gets broken I'll string you up for the crows to feed on!"

His heart was beating madly, despite his irritation at his and his attempts to remain calm. He knew who that was. There was only one perpetrator who liked to fight in total darkness.

There was a swish of fabric above their heads, and Scarecrow instinctively threw himself to the ground while trying desperately to shove his mask on over his face. In front of him and to the left he heard the sound of something hitting flesh and a loud grunt of pain, followed by a body crashing to the ground. "Hey!" one of the lackeys shouted, and others scuffled about, but it was obvious they were being soundly thrashed by their attacker.

Finally the mask was strapped in place and Scarecrow turned it on, bright green flooding his vision as the world became clear to him once more.

About ten or so feet in front of him he saw the figure he knew he would see, doing more or less what he expected. Batman ducking under the comically misplaced swings of Scarecrow's henchmen, the slits in his mask glowing bright as he wove in the darkness, and dispatching them with a well-placed blow that would send each other them sprawling into a heap. He had on some kind of full face mask, no doubt a protection against his usual toxin spray, but Scarecrow had something much more potent than that.

Scarecrow snarled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small vial and then inserting it into a special slot just above the mouth of his night vision mask. Darts wouldn't work here, he learned long ago that Batman was far too nimble and stealthy to really be shot at, and whatever he made his suit out of made him impervious to most projectiles unless it was a _very_ lucky shot. Good thing the Bat decided to attack just after they got done cooking up a batch of new toxin, though. And this one he had prepared _just_ for him, too.

"Oh look at who's here," he crackled as he stood up, his tongue rasping along his mouth dryly as he straightened up. "Do you think I'm afraid of the dark, Batman? Such primitive fears hold no sway over me."

"I don't need you to be afraid," Batman replied calmly as he turned, swinging a set of bolas in his hand. "I just need you to hold still."

With a snap of his arm he threw them, and Scarecrow leaped clean over them, as they were aimed at his legs. Too late, though, he realized that this was exactly what Batman wanted him to do, as he now had a second or two of being completely helpless while he waited for his feet to hit the ground again. Batman was barely a step behind his weapon, rushing forward as soon as he let them fly and crashing into Scarecrow just as he fell back to the ground, sending them both sprawling.

It was something akin to being hit by a truck, with such a wall of muscle and force trying to pin him down and keep his hands from going into his pockets for his toxins, but Scarecrow grinned despite the pain shooting through his body. "Too late, Bats," he hissed before taking a deep, rattling breath, and blowing through the mouth slot in this mask.

That was the trigger. It activated a special mechanism within his mask which used the vial of toxin as fuel and then blasted out clouds of toxin through two special spray devices on each side of his mouth. Simple, ingenious, and perfect for when his hands had no use, like right this second.

It caught Batman full in the face and the effect was immediately obvious as he seized up, fingers clamping down on Scarecrow's arms hard enough to bruise the bone, and began coughing. Just as Scarecrow hoped, not only was his attack so close there was little Batman could do to avoid it, but the toxins he had mixed into this vial were so overwhelming that it was impossible for Batman's mask to have filtered out every single bit of it, not without full scuba gear anyway.

"Having a little headache, Batman?" he chuckled, using all of his strength to curl his legs up and kick Batman off of him. He was proud of how far he managed to shove the Bat, with how heavy he was, and it was more than a little gratifying to watch the Caped Crusader stumble back and fall. He was still coughing and his hands clenched, swatting at phantoms that only he could see.

Scarecrow hauled himself to his feet, wincing at how much his arms hurt, and began slowly walking forward. "Tell me, Batman, what do you see?" he hissed as he approached. He picked up a metal bat dropped by one of his henchmen and kept approaching. "What visions torment your mind under my venom? I've always been dying to know."

But Batman was still a dangerous enemy, even under the effects of fear toxin as he had his wits about him and he rushed at Scarecrow, trying to knock him down again. But he was clumsy, on edge, and Scarecrow avoided the attempt easily by sidestepping and smashing his weapon down on Batman's arm. He was surprised the bone didn't break, but with the grunt he heard it definitely did some damage. He raised the weapon again but Batman pivoted, balancing on one foot while the other snapped out to kick him right under the chin.

It _would_ have hit him under the chin, anyway, if he hadn't changed direction at the last minute and blocked the attack with the baseball bat instead of hitting the Bat like he wanted to do. The cheap aluminum bent like a spoon from the force of the blow and nearly hit him in the nose, while he was sent sprawling back. His arm flailed wildly and he managed to smack it against the top of the table, catching him from falling over yet it sent half of the equipment and glasses flying over the edge with a terrible crashing that half the city block could probably hear at this point.

There was a sharp, harsh pain in his arm and Scarecrow glanced down to see blood blooming across his sleeve and broken glass littering the top of the table. God dammit, some of these components were _expensive._ He jumped back up, tossing away his useless weapon while Batman ran at him again, his step surprisingly steady, and grabbed the first thing that came to his hands. It ended up being one of the stools which they had all been sitting on around the table, and he threw it.

Much to his surprise, Batman took the attack full-on and tripped over it, almost smacking his face against the floor as he fell. He tried to scramble up but Scarecrow was already ahead of him, taking a microscope and bringing it down on Batman's head. Sadly he was wearing a helmeted version of his mask, but there was still a most satisfying clang as it connected. "No, no, Batman," Scarecrow said, following up with a kick to the gut, which flipped Batman over from the force of it. He ignored the coughing of the vigilante and knelt down, fishing in his pocket for a vial of pure toxin. The night's fresh batch. "As much as I'd love to take you and pick apart your mind and listen to your screams for the rest of my life, you're too dangerous to let live." He uncorked the vial. "Just indulge me _once,_ though, and tell me what you _see_ with this." He reached to take off the mask.

Just then, a giggle echoed across the theater, stopping him cold. Even Batman seemed to notice something different, as even his coughing stopped.

"Who's there?!" Scarecrow demanded, jumping to his feet and whirling around, peering in every direction with his goggles. Nothing.

"Oh poor little Scarecrow," a female voice filtered in form the darkness, somewhere off to the left. But he still couldn't see anything. "Scared of little old me?"

Scarecrow readied one of his darts. "It is you in the darkness," he hissed, still looking. "Why don't you come out of hiding and see how brave your taunts are then."

Another laugh, high and girlish and it made the hairs on his spine rise. "Oh Scarecrow, it might be dark but I'm just fine," she said sweetly. "After all, what do you call a circus performer who sees in the dark?"

"What?" Scarecrow muttered, completely confused at this point.

"An acro-bat!"

Finally he saw movement, except he could barely follow the figure who was flipping across the stage toward him in such a dizzying display that by the time she was upon him it was too late to do anything. A kick landed high on his chest, sending him to the floor while the women flipped away back into the darkness. Scarecrow snarled and scrambled back to his feet, coughing, "Come back out here and fight!"

"Careful there, Scarecrow," the voice singsonged playfully. "Try not to trip over your own feet, with how big they are and all—"

"Enough!" he yelled, and could barely hear the steps behind him before the blow came to his shoulders, almost knocking him down again. This time he kept his balance and whirled, his fist flying but it hit thin air. A blur raced by him, hitting the back of his knee as it passed and this time bringing him down again.

"You're lucky you don't fit into my car, Scarecrow, or I'd drive you all the way to Arkham!" the woman laughed. "Sadly though, it's waaay too small for you. Don't worry, I called the police instead!"

Scarecrow grunted, but before he could stand up again, a weight hit his shoulders and he felt himself being pinned down. There was some kind of bar pressing on the back of his neck, holding him down while a pair of knees dug right into the middle of his shoulders, not only forcing him down but being incredibly painful while she did it.

"Get it?" the woman whispered in his ear. "Clowns, tiny cars?"

What the hell she was muttering about Scarecrow couldn't even begin to guess, but he retaliated by slipping one of his tiny handheld canisters out of his sleeve and spraying it at her face. Sadly she knew what it was, because she immediately jumped away before it could do any lasting harm. Scarecrow jumped to his feet, whirled, and—

Oh that explained all of the stupid circus puns. The woman standing in front of him seemed to be dressed in what was, for lack of a better word, a black and red jester costume of some sort, with a comically painted white face and a black mask around her eyes not unlike what Riddler liked to wear when he was out and about. She was twirling a pole in her hand and a wicked smile was on her face as she watched him move. "Good evening there, straw-brain," she said, giggling a little at her own joke. "Sorry to bust your little party you have going on here, but playtime's over."

"I'll cut that pretty little face off and wear it as a trophy," Scarecrow hissed, watching her eyes narrow just a little. Good, a spot to pick at. "And that's just where I'll start."

She rushed at him again, moving so quick it was hard to tell just where she would end up, and he could already tell that trying to predict her would be a headache. Her pole smacked his forearm as he tried to block it, then his ankle, then he managed to grab it and yank hard. Much to his surprise she let him have it, which made him stumble back as the force of his own strength caught him, and she took advantage of his misstep by flying at him with a kick.

They both ended up in a heap of tangled limbs that were flying around, he hit her side and she pressed her reclaimed pole against his neck again, nearly choking him until it was clear that she was the victor by her superior position of sitting on his chest. "There," she said, breathless and chuckling, "now you just—"

"Just what?" Scarecrow hissed, smirking and tapping the tip of his switchblade against her throat. The woman clearly did not see him pull it out, and went very still at the sensation. He poked her skin just slightly. "Up," he said, and she slowly got to her feet, her pole still raised. "Much better. Now you should feel privileged, I only use this on people who truly annoy me." He breathed in deeply, relishing in how her eyes grew wide under that mask.

A gloved hand clamped down over his mouth just as he blew, and panic filled him as his toxin backed up, the liquid pouring over the glove and into his mouth as the spray blasted it out and it had nowhere to go. He screamed and struggled against the hand, but an arm clamped around his chest and held him in a grip of iron while chemicals flooded his mouth and brain. His vision dances, mouths and eyes opening to look at him and goddammit he had completely forgotten about Batman _why_ did he forget about the Bat—

He started wheezing, limbs twitching, and he collapsed in a heap as his legs refused to work.

"Oh my," she said as she watched him twitch on the ground. "That was, um, really great how you held him like that and, oh—" Oh no she said that out _loud_ again, didn't she? She just barely managed to stop herself from facepalming.

For once, Batman actually looked confused. "How I...held him?" he asked, giving her a look.

In those big, muscular arms, and—"Nevemind," she muttered, glad that her white face paint stopped her blush from showing. "Here, I brought some rope. For tying. Tying _him,_ I mean, oh for the love of—" she slapped her hand to her face, sighing at herself. She was going to _kick_ her stupid brain one day.

Dang, he really had stuffed his toxins full of some freaky shit, hadn't he? Scarecrow was still twitching as they tied him up and it was really hard to get the ropes to hold him properly while they did so.

"Hey, thanks for tha—" Harley tried to say as she turned around to thank Batman, only to find him gone. She sighed. When he heard the sirens Batman had immediately yanked off Scarecrow's mask for "research" as he muttered and then went riffling through his pockets, pulling out all the vials he could before the police showed up

Except...she didn't think he was quite gone. As her eyes scanned around she found an exit to the roof suspiciously ajar. She wouldn't have bet on her life that he took it himself, but an invitation on the other hand...

She made sure to lock it behind her so the police wouldn't be suspicious, then she raced up the steps. God there were an awful lot of them. She had been honing her body with gymnastics for several weeks at this point and her legs still burned from the effort of hauling herself up several flights of them. New thing to check off her list, stair exercises because this was just unforgivable.

The door to the roof banged open, and to her shock and disappointment it was empty, but a second later she saw the figure crouched on the mall roof and understood. It was an easy leap, especially with her pole, and she ducked behind a gargoyle just as several cruisers came rolling around the corner.

She came forward, approaching the hunched back of Gotham's angel while he peered at the scene below just like one of the gargoyles he flanked. "Thanks for that back there," she said with a smile. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced yet. I'm Harley Quinn."

"What are you doing, Doctor Quinzel?"

She tried not to wince, but couldn't help it. Then again she didn't _really_ choose the most undercover name for herself, but she was certain no one could recognize her through the outfit. She barely even recognized _herself._ "What did it look like?" she asked, trying to keep her voice as light and neutral as possible. "Helping you out."

"Getting yourself killed, more like."

His growl just made her temper irk a little. "And you weren't? I saved your life back there, too, you know."

He stood up. Gosh he was so tall when he did that, she wasn't going to get over that. It was like he just, unfolded himself somehow and became much bigger than he should have been able to. He had taken the lower half of his mask off, so when he turned she could see the grim twist of his mouth. "That is why you shouldn't be doing this," he said. "Even I make mistakes, or something happens that I don't expect, and I've been doing this for much longer than you have. You will just get hurt."

"Or, crazy thought here, we could work together and watch out for each other!" Harley snapped, crossing her arms and glaring up at him. He didn't seem nearly so angry or cold as he did in his previous conversation, but there was still a hardness to him that she just wanted to bash down with a hammer. "Like how we did back there? I saved you back there and you saved me, just like what two people should do in a situation like that!"

"Harleen, this is not the kind of life for you," Batman interjected, his voice stern. "I have Robin, and that's enough."

Not Doctor Quinzel this time, but Harleen. She felt her heart picking up as she sensed the weakness and the change, and pressed on. "Where is he, then? If he's such a trusty sidekick then why wasn't he in there with you?"

This time it was Batman's turn to look a little sheepish. That is, if his expression could be called that. It was definitely something related even if he still managed to be as cold as a rock while doing it. "He is here, technically," he said, as evasive as ever.

Harley raised an eyebrow. "Technically?" she repeated.

"It's very late. He fell asleep on the stakeout and I left him in the Batmobile."

Dear lord if that wasn't the _sweetest_ thing she had ever heard—"Maybe you need someone who can stay awake all night, then," she said with a smirk.

He sighed and rubbed his chin, and there was something strange in the gesture that just made her heart leap in her chest. "No, Doctor Quinzel, I can't—"

She let out an explosive sigh and threw her hands up. "You are such a stupid, _stubborn_ idiot!" she yelled.

She couldn't help it. She had no idea what her hands were doing until she grabbed him and pulled them both together into a crushing, demanding kiss.


	6. Deeper Into The Rabbit Hole

Oh _wow_ his lips were surprisingly soft. That was the first thought that crossed Harleen's mind when her brain started working again after kissing Batman. _Kissing Batman._ Oh goodness that was just about enough to set her brain reeling again. His lips were thin, and that wasn't because they were always pressed into a line she could now tell, and even though they barely moved against hers Harleen couldn't care because the mere feeling of them alone was incredible.

Then she realized, a moment later, what she was doing and oh dear lord _what was she doing?!_ It was Harleen who ended the kiss, just as much as she began it, and she all but leaped away from Batman, releasing his clothes as if his touch had burned her. But Batman had not moved so much as a single muscle. "I—oh my god I'm so sorry about that," she babbled, feeling her face scorch in embarrassment and shame. She was even more grateful, now, for the face paint since she was pretty sure Batman would have been able to see her flush without it, even with how dark it was.

She was such an _idiot._ Did she have no control over her brain (or her _hormones_ for that matter) whatsoever? Why did her IQ always take such a nosedive whenever Batman was anywhere near her?

"Harleen," Batman's voice broke through the darkness, hard as stone and somehow sounding unfazed but Harleen _knew_ that was a lie. No one just got kissed by someone randomly and shrugged it off so calmly. Batman had to be the best poker player on the whole planet. "Listen to me now, and this time don't ignore what I say to go play upon your fantasies."

His words struck her like blows, and thankfully her embarrassment began to burn away in the face of her anger. He was good in that too, absolutely infuriating her in the fewest amount of words possible. Harleen always thought she had quite a large amount of patience, especially knowing the job and profession she went for, but somehow Batman just made all of that fly right out the window like it never existed in the first place. "Forget this night. Forget everything that has happened so far. You got out of a very dangerous situation, alive, and you need to thank all of your lucky stars for that because almost no one is that lucky."

Harleen scowled and opened her mouth to say that was more skill than luck (and his help but he didn't deserve to hear that with how he was speaking to her) but he went on as if he never even noticed.

"Go back home. Focus on the rest of your life, and forget about this new hobby of yours before it consumes your life."

"Like how it's consumed yours?" Harleen immediately snapped back, unable to her herself, but the words had barely been spoken before Batman was leaping over the side of the roof. His grappling gun fired and he swung away to the nearest building, his cape flaring behind him in a way that was both incredibly dramatic and quite frightening, and Harleen _knew_ he had heard her and was just ignoring her at this point.

Not that it made her any less right, though.

She stood there for a time that was far longer than necessary, arms crossed, just angry and fuming and fuming over how angry she was and glaring at the spot where she had last seen Batman as if he was still there for some reason and could see her glaring. Which was ridiculous, of course, but at the moment she was really just too angry to do anything was so infuriating, he didn't understand anything, why didn't he let her _help_ him, she had just proved herself to be more than competent on her very first fight against Scarecrow of all people. Alright she had lost the fight int he end but so had he! And it wasn't like she had immediately lost!

Besides what gave him the right to brood on the events of the past forever and turn him into some great hero fighting crime and not her? Harleen had come to terms with herself on the fact that she had been changed forever by her experiences, whether she liked it or not, and the sooner she stopped trying to fight what she was becoming the better. Batman was just going to have to get used to her, he wasn't the only hero in the city anymore.

More sirens were coming, more flashing lights and oh goodness was that a SWAT van she hoped it wasn't. Her heart thumped and even though she was a whole building away she still felt uneasy and like she was far too close for comfort. The red and blue lights flashed alternatively along her hiding spot and she picked up her pole to creep away, using the gargoyles for cover. Then she could pole jump to another roof and then another until she reached the place where she had left her car. A far trashier piece of equipment than the Batmobile, but at least to her credit no one would look twice at her once she washed all the makeup off.

Now all she had to do was start jumping...She gulped a little at the thought and took a running leap to get going. She could _do it_ but being suspended so far above the ground on nothing but a pole made her extremely uncomfortable still. She had to find some parkour teachers, Gotham was the best city in the world for rooftop parkour, there had to be dozens of them around.

Thankfully there were very few people on the roads at this hour because Harleen was fairly certain she would have gotten into a wreck on at least five separate occasions if she had been paying the slightest bit of attention. Which she was not. She was fairly certain in hindsight that she had blown through every single red light and stop sign possible and maybe swerved into the opposite lane just once but since no one was on the road no harm had been done. And since, from what she could tell, there was not a _single_ cop in _Gotham_ of all places (probably all drawn to where she and Bats had left Scarecrow but still) so she managed to get off scot-free with her crazy driving.

"He's such a _jerk!"_ she was yelling at no one in particular while she sped down the road, the environment around her a blur. "Why do I keep coming back to him and trying to get his attention? What's the point?!"

 **You're right, it's quite pathetic** , that dry, clinical part of her brain spoke up to quip. **But being obsessed does such things to you.**

"Oh shut up!" she growled, yanking her wheel with far more force than was necessary, coughing the wheels of the car to squeal horribly as she turned the corner. Oh maybe she should slow down, that wasn't really a good thing to do, she might flip her car over or something.

 _Batman does it all the time!_ That annoying and completely unwanted part of her piped up with it's absolutely unnecessary bit of information. _He even did it while you were riding in the Batmobile with him! Remember that? You got to ride in the Batmobile!_

 _"_ Yeah it was great, until he yelled at me again. Now you shut up too!" Was she yelling at herself now?

 **Yes, are you actually arguing with yourself at this point?** The analysing part of her brain asked. **Are you sure the weight of all of this isn't just driving us insane?**

Harleen gave a snort. "Yeah, if that whole incident with Joker didn't put me in an asylum on day two of the aftermath I think I'm pretty stable."

 _Of course you are,_ whispered a deeper, darker part of herself that her instincts naturally tuned in to hear. _Didn't you see how well you took down Scarecrow? Like a natural. Once you embrace it, everything becomes so much easier._

"That was always the crux of the issue," Harley muttered, her voice serious. "Accepting and not accepting. Struggling and giving in. Giving in is the hardest part, the acceptance and the embrace of the change."

 _Not much of a change if you ask me,_ the dark voice whispered seductively. _You can't change into something if it was always there, that makes no s ense._

 **On the contrary it makes perfect sense** , her doctor self raised its head to challenge the voice with cold reason. **Personas are an occurrence in people who have endured trauma, and the facets that make up our personalities are -**

 _I'm not here because of trauma, thank you._

 _You're here because of BATMAAAN! Oh his jaw is so sharp, you need to touch it the next time you two -_

"Will you all SHUT UP!" Harleen yelled at the top of her lungs, slapping her hand against her steering wheel. That's it she was tired of this, time for the radio. She cranked the volume up so loud she was pretty sure the astronauts running the International Space Station heard it and flew down the road, just thinking about how angry she was at Batman, trying not to wreck, and _ignoring_ the scattered parts of her brain vying for dominance. It worked for about ten seconds.

 _I've always been here and are you about to tell me something as silly as no one has a hidden part of themselves that they, themselves, are not even aware of? Come on Quinzel, you're an idiot but you're no clown._

 **And you are not Freud**.

 _How you feel about Batman is definitely Freudian, though!_

That flutter of excitement at the mere thought of Batman was just cringe-levels of embarrassing.

"BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO CUT ME OFF-" she began singing, obnoxiously, at the top of her voice as if to drown out her own arguments and humiliation.

 _But to bring back the original topic: I've always been here, so why does Batman even need to be a factor? Who says you need him? This Harley Quinn can do a solo performance!_

 **Batman is a the root of the issue** , her doctor part said, **he needs to be here or else nothing makes sense**.

"MAKE OUT LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED AND WE WERE NOTHING- "

 _And why not have Batman around, it's Batman! He's so incredible and strong and brave and dark and did you see how he manhandled Scarecrow like oh god what a hunk—_

"AND I DON'T EVEN NEED YOUR LOVE-"

 _He is not the root of the issue! Joker is! Joker and Arkham Asylum and all the other countless people who had their lives changed or torn away by a single, vile act of cruelty. Criminals who take and take because it suits them and uncaring of all the damage they leave behind!_

Maybe she should have taken those pills Batman gave her after all.

"BUT YOU TREAT ME LIKE A STRANGER AND IT FEELS SO ROUGH-"

 **That isn't wrong, technically** , the doctor part of her brain admitted with hesitation. **But this hero obsession definitely is.**

 _No it isn't. Wanting to change things, wanting to make them better, has nothing to do with it. Batman had no Batman to inspire him, he simply understood what was wrong in the world and went to fix it._

"NO YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO STOOP SO LOW-"

Why did she know that Batman had no one to help him? There was no way she could ever know that, but something in her gut told her that it was right.

 **Not accepting our help is a foolish move** , her doctor voice murmured, and Harleen could feel the shift even as her heart raced from it. **But constantly tagging him along and trying to get his attention isn't going to work. It's pathetic**.

 _ANY attention from Batman is good attention!_

"HAVE YOUR FRIENDS COLLECT YOUR RECORDS AND THEN CHANGE YOUR NUMBER-"

 _But we want him to like us, _her inner self purred.

"GUESS THAT I DON'T NEED THAT THOUGH-"

 **We have to build our way up though. Like in college. If we want to fix the world we can't start so big. Just look at all the patients in Arkham, only a dozen or so are Batman's main enemies. The rest of them are just dangerous, insane people, and how often do they get talked about?**

Her heart jumped into her throat, nearly choking her on her realization. Oh, _oh,_ she was right. That was...why did she never notice that before? Was she really that blind to the little problems around? To all of the ugly parts of the human life?

Even her brain had shut up for a moment, chewing on that and trying to remember any of the other patients at Arkham. She could pull up names, but out of pure, long habit only, and their faces kept slipping from her. So focused on the big picture and the loud booms she didn't notice all of the smaller parts falling through the cracks. Which is what many of those in Arkham truly were, the pour souls who slipped through the cracks of society to eventually become dangerous, crazed individuals. The unfortunate part was that everyone was so wrapped up in the fact that they had people like _Joker_ actually being in the building that they completely forgot about the dangerous, homicidal and suicidal man in the cell on the next floor because he was sexually abused as a child by his uncle.

Her hands tightened, bile rising up to her throat. She remembered the mugger in the alley and the terrified woman. No Joker, no Scarecrow, but god if helping that woman escape hadn't made her feel so _proud_ of herself. That was one of the proudest moments of her life, when she actually did something that mattered, even if in a little way.

No, she was going to help. She had to. It hurt, having to turn away from Batman but...

 **Because this is bigger than Batman** , her logical part whispered. **This is about humanity in general. Ours, as well as the concept itself**.

 _Besides,_ that little singsong part of her giggled, _wouldn't it be much more fun if Batman would chase us instead?_

A part of her brain really did faint at the idea and Harleen groaned before realizing where she was at and slowing down before she passed her building.

Parked there for a moment, she sighed and looked up, up past her building and into the dark Gotham sky. The Batsignal was out, stark and sharp against the clouds. The city itself praying for the arrival of its angel.

The idea of not being able to answer it made her heart sink, but she would be...there still, in her own way. Picking up scraps, doing little things, silent and unnoticed, forgotten in the menagerie.

And yet, it was important. It _had_ to be.

When she walked into Arkham the next day it was with bleary eyes and an extra shot of espresso in her coffee, before she went right to work upon her new idea. Harleen could feel the puzzled stares as she picked up her files and instead of turning to the high-security hall, she instead went downstairs to the sections of Arkham that housed the less dangerous patients of the asylum. Of course she would go back to Joker later, she couldn't let him think he was intimidating her, after all,but now she had smaller fish to fry.

Harleen flipped through the papers as she went down the stairs. David Banksey, heroin addict with delusions, Suzanne Yu, suffered from a mental break after her mother locked her in a closet for three years, Rick Mahul, gang member who was in a mental asylum for his dissociative states and not for the fact that he killed four people.

Stuff to make her stomach churn, but when compared to people like Clayface, Poison Ivy, and Joker, this all sounded like it was relatively minor. And yet these people were still hurting, they still had stories that needed to be told and problems that could have been fixed potentially had no everyone been sweating over the big stuff. There couldn't be a cop for every problem in Gotham, there were simply too many to cover, but even the superheros who weren't limited to such things never bothered, and none of them ever saw justice or help. And even if they did wish to talk, they hardly would to a cop.

But they would talk to their therapist, though.

They talked surprisingly easy, to tell the truth. Perhaps they always needed someone to open up to, someone who felt like they truly cared, or maybe Harleen was just that good at talking to people. Anyone who wasn't Batman, anyway.

Putting out her feelers, she listened and listened and took notes. There were accomplices, someone who suspected their neighbor of being up to no good, someone being a victim of another and suffering a breakdown, a former gang member selling out those in his gang he had a vendetta against...so many dark and dirty tangles in the web of Gotham's underbelly. The more days Harleen devoted to listening, the more the dread in her stomach grew. It was like listening to a tidal wave growing and growing and how was she even supposed to stem the tide?

Even helping one person is better than helping none of them.

Once she had gathered up her courage, she decided to tackle her first solo mission small. A man talking about where his neighborhood was and how there was a local stalker who preyed upon women. He thought that the man did something awful to them, since eventually all of those women disappeared. Harleen did a little research first, and found that at least three of them had moved away, no doubt to move away from their creepy stalker, but several others had just gone mysteriously missing. Police suspected a stalker, but no one had pinned down a suspect.

Except for the man, who said he was certain it was his downstairs neighbor. Of course no one believed him because he was diagnosed with paranoia. But Harleen figured it couldn't hurt to take a look.

What she wasn't quite expecting to see from the roof of a nearby building, however, was to watch the man come out of the front door of his building dragging what was clearly a body in a bag behind him.

Oh _god,_ oh good lord—

Harley had attacked at once, shock and rage feeling her as she came crashing down upon the man and knocking him out cold with her pole. At first she thought she had killed him and to be totally honest that wouldn't have been _that_ bad of a thing but at the same time she didn't want to just murder people. Batman never killed, after all.

She tied the man up and then peeked in the bag just to see if she had made a mistake in her identification and she was never going to unsee that, ever. Harley flinched and threw up in the gutter a few seconds later, shaking all over from the sight of this man's twisted work. Then when she finally picked herself up she ran to the nearest pay phone and made a frantic, panicky call to the police that she didn't even have to force too hard before hanging up and climbing back to her hiding spot on the nearby roof.

Harley waited _way too long_ for a squad car to show up and she was glad she had the sense of mind to tie the man to a street light (right next to his corpse) because he woke up about halfway into her wait. She watched him, bored and chewing on some gum (helped her breath after vomiting) as he struggled and tried to yell for help through his gag. _Finally_ an officer showed up, was promptly freaked out, and then soon four more cars were rolling up in far too quick of a time to be anything less than criminal and Harley finally decided to call it a night.

That was one of the most horrifying things she had ever seen in her life. Only Joker and her nightmares with him had topped that. And that's why it felt so _good_ to put him away.

Buoyed by her success, she tried to very next night to interrupt a meeting of a gang of drug dealers and bring the cops in on them. She didn't even get to the building she needed to go to when she screwed up her pole jump over to another building and ended up falling into an alley. Lucky for her she landed in a dumpster and didn't injure herself, but also unluckily the crash made so much noise that Batman himself probably heard it. She heard yells, shouts, and then feet running toward her and then _she_ was the one running for her life to escape the pursuit of a bunch of angry meth heads.

Alright those parkour lessons for real. And to stop being so damn confident.

There was another time Harley caught a thief after he robbed a bank, but not before she had to fight him and knock him unconscious. Not those sparring self-defense lessons either, a real, full-blown fight where every move felt too fast and every single mistake could cost her her life. She was bloodied and bruised by the end of it but she was the one who delivered the roundhouse kick to his head to knock him out, but then immediately afterwards she had to _limp_ her way to safety because the sirens sounded like they were right below her.

She called in sick the next day, and the day after that, because when she awoke (still in full Harley costume) her muscles had locked up and she could barely move an inch. Harley had to force herself to hobble to the shower and only after standing under the steaming water for twenty minutes did she feel like her body was working like it was supposed to. She kept herself on painkillers for most of the next three days and finally forced herself to go to work before anyone became suspicious, but it was weeks before she felt good enough to go running around again.

Then Harley literally lassoed a mugger and dragged him to a police car, crashed the party of a Scarecrow fear toxin dealer without managing to get sprayed (although she did bang her knee against a stool), juggled Molotoves into a warehouse filled with Joker venom (he had escaped again and she thought it was time for well-deserved payback) before almost literally being caught by the clown himself that had her diving into the river to avoid detection and nearly drowning in the process. Batman had also showed up and that scared her more than any of her other efforts combined and she had laid away her suit for a solid month.

Thankfully, from what she had heard, Joker blamed Batman and said the "red and black little sidekick" was Robin. Batman believed that Joker had set the fire himself to lure him there, and had not been aware that Robin had already gone away to join the Teen Titans a while back. Harleen was glad to just get out of there with her skin intact and mission accomplished.

And now her efforts had brought her here, to the house she was watching now. One of her patients had told her about it, a former neighbor who, in his breaks from reality, would start sobbing and babbling about how horrible life must be for the mother and daughter who lived next door to him. The father of the family was abusive scum of the earth and for some reason the authorities could never quite get him or pin him down.

Well, not this time. Harley waited quietly, watching the lights in the house which never flickered, and yet no one came walking by. It had been like that for several nights now, so when a scream broke the silence she jumped so hard that she nearly dropped her pole.

Sadly in this part of Gotham screams weren't uncommon so it was hard for anyone to get overly bothered by one. Which left her to save the day.

The screams were unbearable, two of them, rising and falling in pitch and tone and thank the lord the front door was unlocked, she had learned how to kick them down but that would look really suspicious on the police report later. She found them as she expected them, the mother sobbing and already covered in blooming bruises while her daughter crouched in the corner, shaking and watching her father beat upon her.

Harley felt her blood _boil._ "Hey. asshole!" she sang, feeling her grin widen at the excitement of the fight coming.

He whirled, only to have her pole slam into him.

"Why don't you actually pick on someone who can fight back?" Harley continued, hitting him again, and again, and ignoring the stunned looks of the other family members.

He had been in fight clubs, though, apparently, which explained why he recovered so quickly and launched at her. He wasn't a caught druggie or fleeing criminal, he was a violent man who enjoyed doing violent things to people and thought he earned the right to do so. So he was far more dangerous.

Harley had to bob and dodge in her fight, weaving in blows, but she didn't seem to be doing much immediate damage. He was slowing, but not fast enough.

"Mind your own business, _bitch!"_ he yelled, throwing a lamp at her.

It hit her and then he was on her, a punch landing on her ribs with no softness behind it, it was like being hit with a car and Harley screamed. Then a blow to her face slammed the world around, and her reflexes kicked in before her brain, rolling her out of harm's way before she got up and kicked up, catching him under the chin and sending him reeling back. Harley had to stay focused, he was recovering, he was—

She gripped her pole and swung it, hitting his knee and forcing him to the ground, but then he caught her pole when she tried to hit him again. He spat out blood, got up, and Harley's other foot slammed into his face, knocking him out cold.

Harley was left panting and shaking in the aftermath of the fight, wincing with each breath that she breathed through her mouth since blood was pouring out of her nose. That was...intense. Her ribs burned like fire, but she was alive and the mother was looking at her in shock and the daughter at her in awe. And that...felt really good, honestly. Worth the beating.

Heroes usually said something inspiring at this point, right? "You should leave him," she blurted out without thinking. "You deserve better than this pile of trash."

Even more unthinking, she dug around in her suit for her money, which she kept tightly packed in her corset. She was a doctor and the huge wad of bills she pulled out made their eyes widen. "Here,' she said, shoving it at them. "Take all of it, take it and leave and get yourself a better life. I mean it."

She had to leave. All of this was too much.

"Thank you," she heard the tiny voice of the girl following her as she left.

When she got home she _cried,_ but only for a few moments because her face hurt too much. She felt like a giant boot had just stomped on her and was she still doing the right thing? Getting beaten up every night, all to stem the tide of this nonsense that always seemed to grow more and more with each passing night? How did anyone handle it? How did Batman?

She looked at herself in the mirror, makeup half-off, bruised skin showing underneath, eyes heavy and dreadful.

But the girl had looked at her, filled with hope and awe, like she had just seen a miracle itself. A superhero. And had thanked her.

If that little girl never had to experience a night like this again thanks to her, then it was more than well worth it.


	7. Tricksters

This was without a doubt the most _insane_ thing Harleen had ever been to in her life. And probably ever would be, too. Of course she was no stranger to charity events. Heck, a long time ago (okay last year, but that was still a pretty good stretch of time by human lifespan) she would have hated to be invited to such a thing. She liked her work far more than she liked socializing and talking about it, but she knew the necessary evil that was being on the good side of the public eye and occasionally beg them for money via means of throwing a fancy party and bribing with food and drink to hope they donated. In her opinion this money didn't need to be asked for, since it was obvious to anyone that helping a bunch of sick people tormented by their own minds was an amazing cause that needed no convincing to marshal behind.

Well, _should have been_ , she guessed.

But this one was...different. And even as much as she might have liked in principle to not go, she couldn't find herself really putting any heart behind her idea of refusal. _And_ one didn't just say _no_ to a personal invitation from Bruce Wayne to attend the event that _he_ was so kindly throwing for them and dumping _his_ millions of cash into. God, how much money did he have anyway? He could probably buy his own island (right, like he didn't already have one, that was a good joke, Harleen) and float it atop of his money.

So it was more than a little surprising when an envelope had been addressed to her in her mail, written in a hand she had never seen before that was _impeccably_ beautiful. She hadn't even known at first it was addressed to her, mostly because she had been oogling the beautiful paper and golden filigree decorations covering the edges before she tried to read the name, and also because she had trouble reading it at first. Harleen had never been the best at cursive, her attempts being passable in school, but this calligraphy was so incredible and gorgeous that it didn't matter that she could barely read it, it was _fantastic._

Until she opened the envelope and read what was inside, though. A card much like what was on the outside of the envelope, personally inviting her to the Arkham charity event being help by Bruce Wayne for raising awareness of the mentally ill, but also to raise more security and compensation and care for the victims of attacks from the prisoners and former prisoners of Arkham Asylum.

Which at least answered the question of _why her_ in particular. Wayne had probably heard about Joker's attack and Batman's rescue of her, and reached out to her.

And even as she had been contemplating whether or not to go, standing around in her kitchen, that sudden tidbit of information came slamming to the forefront of her brain like the force of a freight train. Thank the hippocampus for storing _that_ memory away to be useful later!

 _Bruce Wayne knew Batman._

The revelation and memory had her standing stupefied for a good ten seconds as her mind remembered and connected all the dots. She remembered scraps of news reels half-paid attention to while she had been busy doing something else. Magazine articles with bold headlines that were impossible to ignore. Gossip from coworkers and friends. Bruce Wayne publically funded Batman. The one and only connected the Caped Crusader had to any single resident in Gotham. They had met, they had talked, and they even made some sort of plans together.

Harleen briefly wondered about that, as she could hardly imagine Wayne staying sober enough for any sort of hard and official planning to even sink in. But perhaps he just had a good heart and liked to see justice being done and having a way to help in even if that was in a small way. It would make sense, after all, given what happened to his parents.

At that Harleen sighed and shook her head. Poor, poor Bruce. She couldn't possibly imagine any worse thing happening to a child, especially right in front of his face. His parents ripped away by a criminal, having been witness to it all...it was hardly any wonder why Wayne turned out the way he did, ruining his life and health by drinking and partying and having wild sex every single night. How he hadn't actually pissed away his whole enormous fortune was really anyone's guess. She knew that was what a lack of parenting did, though she knew his...butler, she guessed? He was the guardian after both parents had died. He should have been that parenting role for Wayne, but she didn't need to be told that a servant who was obligated to follow orders becoming a guardian was a terrible idea. It was his duty to serve his employer, so naturally no one had put a foot down to rein in Wayne's worst impulses.

But still...he knew Batman. And he invited _her_ personally. Harleen was not so unbelievably stupid to pass this opportunity up, and immediately began looking for a halfway decent dress.

Alright, she had to admit. As much as she _still_ disliked social settings as she found out, and gaudy chandeliers and people poking and prodding her again and again by asking her opinion on this paper or this bit of gossip—this one was not actually that bad.

A great deal of it was in the food, of course, and the wine. The wine was unrealistically good and now Harleen felt ashamed to even admit that she liked to open a bottle herself at home once in a while, since what she drank regularly was swill compared to this. And she didn't buy cheap, either! She was paid more than well enough for working in Arkham. The cheese was fantastic, too, and there were even oysters! _Massachusetts_ oysters, at the start of winter! But they were fat and salty and almost buttery in their taste, and she ate nine of them just by hovering next to the platter and not interacting with anyone before she realized what she was doing.

There was also a chocolate fountain, too, because of course there was. It was just so good and yet so _unfair_ , at least that was what a petty corner of her thought.

But she couldn't avoid interaction forever. She was caught up not by one, but a group of _four_ colleges who, while not working at Arkham (not crazy enough, she thought somewhat bitterly) had enough of an ear to the ground to know about the Joker incident, as they were calling it. And they knew that Joker was a favorite patient of hers, so of course there was no end to their questions. All the pleasure of learning about Joker, without having to be anywhere near him. All gain, no pain.

Harleen tried to think of the least rude way to extract herself from the knot, and silently fumed that _she_ was the center of attention and not someone else so she could just slip discreetly away. But thankfully, someone else came for her before she could scream.

"Doctor Quinn, a moment if you would please."

The voice was knee-quivering handsome, it could have melted butter. Rich and smooth and a gentle baritone, washing over the assembled like a wave rather than piercing in its interruption, and Harleen was turning with an amount of desperation that she hoped wasn't visible.

 _Ohh he's_ so _good,_ that little Harley Quinn part of herself sighed dreamily, and she bit her cheek a little. Just when it had been quiet for the entire night. Not she was going to have to put up with a running commentary

But she turned, and she was _pretty_ sure her jaw wasn't on the floor, but she couldn't be sure. She didn't have to guess. Anyone who had ever looked at a magazine in their life knew who he was.

Bruce Wayne had striking, incredible steel gray eyes that his pictures did not in any way do proper justice. She all at once felt pinned, but in a way that made her want to ooze and shiver from it. Now she understood the women hanging off his arm all the time much more—she had always thought they were after his money and had bene paid, but honestly she could imagine some women going with him on a look alone.

Oh, he was also unfairly hot. That didn't help either. That jaw was a razor.

He was looking at her expectantly, then with a start Harleen remembered what he actually said and she slapped a sheepish smile across her face. "Oh—of course!" she made a hasty nod to the other doctors, who were glaring jealously, she was more than happy to see, and she followed Wayne as he made his expert way through the crowd.

She saw some stares and that made her heart race. And for the first time she noticed a distinct lack of a woman hanging off Wayne's arm, which must have been obvious to everyone else too.

Wait a moment, did that mean that _she_ was the woman on his arm now? Oh god she hoped not. But at the same time the idea was... nice?

Abruptly Batman flashed into her mind, all hulking and dark against the night sky, with his slit white eyes staring at her. His gravelly, rough voice and huge hands, the way he moved with such grace and fluidity even though he was built like a truck...oh she could fantasize about that for days. Had been, really.

And nights, too. How could she forget the endless dreams she was plagued with of being pinned down by Batman, legs spread wide as he pounded into her better than any man had given it to her before? It was actually embarrassing how often that fantasy came up in her mind, and in small part because he was still wearing his stupid cape and bat hood over his head while being completely naked! Though to be fair that was entirely her fault—she had no idea what he even _looked like_ so her brain couldn't fill in the gap.

This was pathetic. But she still woke up wet and frustrated and wanting, so it wasn't nonsensical. She knew she was thirsty for him, and that kiss didn't help. She kept thinking about the thin, rough line of his mouth, how it felt against her lips and—

 _What the hell are you doing?_ The actually smart part of her brain cut through her thoughts like a bucket of water being thrown over her. _You're at a_ party _for crying out loud! Can you keep it under control for five minutes!_

She was right. Well, of course she was right, she was talking to herself, but with how often Batman had popped up in her mind as of late, she probably deserved a good scolding. Harleen tried to shake her head clear, and saw that she and Bruce were heading to some sort of balcony. That was great, actually. Perhaps some fresh air would help her out.

Bruce stood against the railing, his champagne glass held loosely in his fingers, and Harleen hoped that he wouldn't drop it. "Sorry about that," he said promptly as she came to stand next to him, flashing him the charming grin. "I didn't want to just drag you away so abruptly, but you looked as if you wanted to scream so I came in."

"Knight in shining armor?" Harleen said with a chuckle, shaking her head. He'd have to try a lot harder than that if he wanted to get her in his bed. "Thank you for that, regardless. I'm not very good at social events."

"More of a professional than a socialite," he said, nodding. "I understand, and it's admirable. Especially so when that devotion to your work put you in the Joker's radar."

Ah, here it was. She tried not to brace herself for what she knew was coming, but it was hard not to. It was one thing to hear it from colleagues, but the host of the party who she couldn't so easily brush off, it was a whole other game. "Such is the hazard of my line of work, or perhaps just my place of enjoyment." She gave a humorless smile. "Joker is just the worst of the lot, but Riddler likes talking to me too, even if most of what he says is complete nonsense." Which was completely untrue, but she felt suddenly awkward about admitting that she spent a lot amount of time around the most insane inmates of Arkham, and sometimes it wasn't even strictly professional. It was a secret her and Riddle shared, their talks. "And Scarecrow, but no one is allowed o talk to him for more than once a week unless they have special permission. He gets into everyone's heads too easily."

Wayne was frowning heavily at her, which was both terrible and amazing at the same time, and she was just on the verge of wiggling nervously when he looked away. "Your job is very dangerous," he said at last, softly. "The fact that you are still there after what Joker did to you—I do not know whether it is bravery or foolishness."

"I'll answer for you right now," Harleen said, trying not to sound too cool as she said it. "I do it because it is the _right thing_ to do. Even if these fiends are all irredeemable monsters, we still need to _try_ to help them."

"And altruistic, on top of that," Wayne said in a particular manner that made her frown, and she wondered why. Was Wayne making fun of her? It was entirely possible, but he didn't seem to be the least bit humorous, from what she could tell. "It is something you rarely see in other people."

Harleen wanted to reach out and touch his arm, but she hesitated, her hand remaining stubbornly a her side. "You're a very good person too," she said at last and made a little gesture to the crowd inside and the party still going. "I mean, look at all of this. And look at what you're promising victims, too. No one can ever say Bruce Wayne doesn't care."

"Unless he was caught in bed with yet another woman in the after party," Bruce remarked somewhat dryly. "But I see your point. It is a refreshing one, too."

Harleen tilted her head to the side, trying to peer at him in question and thinking. She couldn't help but feel that something about him was a little familiar, but it was no tiny that she brushed it off. "Do you like the fact that I disagree with you?" she asked instead, more puzzled than accusatory.

Bruce made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "It isn't that," he said. "I don't need people to argue with me. Enough people do that on pure principle. I like it more when people stand up for what they think is right, even if others don't agree with them."

"Like Batman," she blurted out without thinking, and only then stopped herself from covering her hand with her mouth.

 _Ha! You're still thinking about him!_ Harley Quinn laughed at her, and she felt her face flushing with heat, and she was incredibly glad for the night air and the lights on behind them so her face couldn't be illuminated that well.

 _Shut up!_ she snapped back and looked to Wayne, who was smiling at her. But the smile was of amusement.

"Exactly," he said, as if he had no idea what was raging on inside of her mind. His voice had taken on an odd timber, and even though Harleen currently had two parts of her brain squabbling (god was she developing personalities as a way to deal with the trauma, she hoped not) she was not so inexperienced or blind to not notice _that._ "Like Batman."

It was odd, distant, and almost...wistful?

 _He idolizes Batman,_ her mind immediately told her. And to be fair that was no real earth-shattering revelation. It'd be weirder if he didn't. _Batman does what he never could. That's why he helps him all the time._

"Did you hear about the new vigilante on the streets, actually?" Wayne asked her, steering the conversation in almost a complete 180. Harleen blinked at that, stunned, but then shook herself internally. Perhaps Wayne saw that he was being vulnerable and shoved everything in the complete opposite direction, away from himself. Which would make sense, given his childhood trauma, and really she was certain he had to have a whole nasty bunch of bad coping habits that would take the best of psychologists years to untangle.

But she wasn't here for that, and if anything poking into his business and psyche like that would be terribly unprofessional and rude. Instead she brightened up and not in the least because her heart was pounding several miles a minute. Bruce Wayne had taken notice of her. Well, Harley Quinn, but _still._ That might get her to be just one step closer to being in the good graces of Batman and for him to take her seriously. If she couldn't come at the Bat directly, she would go through his friend instead. His handsome, rich friend, and wow that came out scummier than she thought.

"I did!" she said, making her voice sound only a little excited, the same amount one would have about hearing a juicy piece of gossip. "Dressed in a lot of heavy makeup, the news say, though none of it is really solid."

"Of course not, Gotham doesn't want to stir people up," Wayne said with a nod. "It's all very hush hush at the moment, but we'll se what happens. Other than that we know the person is a woman, and apparently a highly capable fighter, but that is pretty much a given I suppose for the work she does."

"Why does everyone keep quiet about it?" Harleen couldn't help but ask. She kept for tone as innocent as possible, and sipped her champagne casually. "It seems that the crime fighter is the gossip of every other person I meet, so it's not like official sources haven't heard anything."

 _I bet there are pictures somewhere, though,_ that playful part of her sighed wistfully. _With how tight that suit is, my ass has got to be looking_ amazing _in it! Especially after all of those workouts!_

God her head was embarrassing. If the Justice League ever swooped into town she would make sure to go on vacation. There were mind readers among them, right? What if one of them heard and told Batman and—her mind was running off again. What chance did she have of that happening, really?

"Of course not," Wayne said, shaking his head to the question she had briefly forgotten she had asked. "But imagine if all of Gotham starts talking about her, another vigilante, then every other citizen with a vendetta is going to take it into their head to go put on some sort of disguise and start their own vigilante work. Things will then start to get very messy, very quickly."

Harleen nodded sympathetically, understanding the problem. If a whole bunch of people decided all at once to be a bunch of clowns and go out beating random people that they _thought_ were criminals, then there would just be more criminals in the streets. Maybe that was why Batman was such a low-key thing at first, actually. A specter of only whispered rumor, a terrifying figure in the night that frightened the criminals he was catching and the people he was saving in equal measures. Maybe it was part intimidation in his appearance and manner, everyone too terrified of him to get close. Harleen certainly knew that it would take a lot of guts to stand up to him when he became confronting—heck, she knew _first hand_ what he thought of anyone else joining him on his nightly adventures. Not many people had that sort of spine.

Though her bravery was also shot through with a ton of stupidity and outright obsession, and she figured that she was simply too crazy to really care at this point. She couldn't stop now, not when fighting these criminals felt so good, and not when Batman could potentially show up at ay moment.

He came in her mind again, all gravel voice and burning eyes, and his hard, hard mouth that yet felt so soft, and the huge arms she knew could crush her to him if he dared. And she knew he did, somewhere deep inside of him. Perhaps that was just her insanity talking, though, but something in her gut told her that it was _not._

"Yeah, I know what you mean," she said, thinking, and then smiled a little. "That's why you help the Bat also, right? To kind of show public support but also make him more official. Or rather, some sort of unofficial police force."

At that Wayne's expression did not flicker, which Harleen thought was a little strange. But maybe he was drunk, as his expression was just an easy smile. "Pretty much," he confirmed, giving her a nod. "Although he came to me for help, first, but I saw the merits of his ideas when he explained them out to me. I am still one of the most influential people in this city—or even the world, if we want to be blunt and honest about it. Me endorsing him and setting down hard lines on what vigilantism should be like deterred both people from joining him, and police from arresting him."

"It must be incredible to know him so well," she said wistfully, thinking against back to that fantasy of him pinning her down onto a bed, or the cold metal table of his Batcave, and how hot he would feel in that cool air, and she bit her lip to bring her back to reality and gulped down a fresh mouthful of champagne, nearly finishing her glass in one go.

 _Don't be embarrassed,_ the Harley Quinn side of her laughed. _He's all worth the attention!_

Except now that she was seeing Bruce Wayne, with how smart and well-spoken he was and absolutely _not_ a sleazy creep like she had always been led to believe about him, he was proving to be very fine as well. She wouldn't exactly call him a perfect gentleman (though he did look _fine_ in a suit and why in the world did a billionaire need to be built like a bodybuilder? that was just overkill) he certainly was well-spoken and polite and even charming after a fashion. That smile could make anyone weak at the knees, and he knew it, the bastard.

But, she liked confident men.

"Indeed it is! He is a fantastic person, though I must disagree on knowing him. I don't think anyone in the world can know Batman." At that his eyes turned away from her to look out into the night for a moment, as if he expected the Bat to randomly come swinging in himself at any moment. Considering how often Harleen had seen him just _appear out of nowhere,_ she would not have been surprised in the least if that actually did happen.

"I know what you mean," she said. "I saw him, once."

"Yes, the Joker incident, I remember that." He looked back to her. "You sure you have been holding up well? That can't possibly have been an experience you can just brush off and forget. The Joker is...worse than any normal criminal. And you are around so many other deranged criminals, all the time."

She had opened her mouth to correct him and say no, she meant the _other_ time Batman saved her, then she stopped. It might not be a good idea to blab about how much time she spent around Batman, so she kept her mouth shut for now. It was probably better to play upon what he already knew. "I thank you for your concern," she said, trying to ignore the squeal of her inner self at how he was _concerned_ for her. Getting noticed by the handsome, rich Bruce Wayne was certainly something to be proud about. Especially since he wasn't hitting on her and actually seemed interested in her as a person.

"However," she went on, "as I said before, I will be fine. And even if wasn't, I'd be worse off if I left what I was doing." A sudden flash of inspiration, of want hit her, a desire to admit the crime she had almost committed. But it wasn't a crime, even if it felt like it to her. "I almost did leave, you know," she admitted in a low voice. "Almost transferred somewhere else. To some other, safer Asylum. But I couldn't go through with it. I need to be in Arkham, and that's where I'll stay."

He gave her a look then. A very pleasant and searching look that lasted perhaps a single second—not fast enough for her to think that she had imagined it, but also not slow enough for her to put any real importance to it aside from the occasional flashes of deeper thought that most people had in their lives. "You are indeed a very interesting woman, Doctor Quinzel," he said, and then his smile was back. "Would you like to have dinner together, sometime? After all of this is dealt with." He waved his hand back to the party.

Harleen felt as if she could backflip. Right off the balcony. That was so utterly and completely _flooring_ that she didn't even know how to process that except to let her unthinking brain just take over—which it did, without asking, because she stopped thinking. "I ate way too many oysters already, so not tonight, but definitely yes!"

He chuckled, which was an _amazing_ sound and she suddenly wished she had more wine with her. "You are a fan of oysters? Seafood restaurant, then," he said with a wink. Aha, the playboy wasn't that far removed, but here it felt nicer.

"Any place with you is amazing," she said, still unthinking, and then she clamped her mouth shut before she could say something really stupid. "But yes, that sounds amazing."

There was a sudden cough behind them. Polite, but pointed. They turned to see an old man standing behind them, tall and narrow, with what remained of his silver hair impeccably combed and his whole bearing regal and graceful. "Master Wayne," he said with a small bow. "You are expected."

Bruce gave her an apologetic look, and then went to be led away, mouthing a _We'll talk later_ over his shoulder at her.

Mmm, his shoulders. So wide and...strong.

Abruptly she wondered what it would feel like to be pressed between Batman and Bruce Wayne at the same time. Wayne knew Batman, he could definitely arrange it.


End file.
